Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16438/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16438-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sundeep Dharni
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

 FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SUNDEEP DHARNI,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11-16438

D.C. Nos.

2:10-CV-02934-EJG

2:05-CR-00306-EJG

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Edward J. Garcia, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 10, 2013—San Francisco, California

Filed January 3, 2014

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Raymond C. Fisher, and

Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wallace

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2 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a

28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate sentence challenging the

alleged closure of the courtroom during voir dire of

petitioner’s criminal trial.

The panel held that the trial judge’s request that family

members and spectators leave the courtroom during voir dire

until seats became available was at most a trivial courtroom

closure that did not implicate petitioner’s Sixth Amendment

rights. The panel further held that counsel did not provide

ineffective assistance by failing to object to the request or

challenge the alleged closure on appeal because it would not

have disturbed the conviction.

COUNSEL

Quin Denvir, Attorney at Law, Davis, California, for

Defendant-Appellant.

R. Steven Lapham (argued), AssistantUnited States Attorney,

Benjamin B. Wagner, United States Attorney, Camil A.

Skipper, Appellate Chief, Sacramento, California, for

Plaintiff-Appellee.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 3

OPINION

WALLACE, Circuit Judge:

Sundeep Dharni filed a motion to vacate, set aside or

correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 based on

the alleged closure of the courtroom during voir dire of his

criminal trial, and the ineffective assistance of both his trial

counsel, by failing to object to the alleged closure, and his

appellate counsel, by failing to challenge his conviction based

on the alleged closure. The district court held that any

closure was trivial and denied the motion. Dharni appeals

from the denial of that motion. We have jurisdiction over his

timely filed appeal under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2253, 2255, 1291. We

affirm.

I.

In early July 2007, Dharni was tried for violations of

18 U.S.C. §§ 844, 1341. During consideration of jury

selection, the district judge stated he “anticipate[d] some

problems because of the 4th of July holiday and possible

hardship excuses.” He therefore expanded the number of

prospective jurors. On the morning of trial, the district court

judge stated that when

the jury comes up, I’m going to ask all family

members to go out in the hall. We need every

seat in the audience section of the courtroom

as we called in extra jurors because of the

vacation problem. So that during jury

selection, all of the family and friends of the

defendant and any other spectators that are out

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4 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

there will wait out in the hall during jury

selection until seats open up.

Dharni’s lawyer did not object to the court’s statement. 

A few moments later, the judge asked “the family of the

defendant and other spectators [to] please leave the

courtroom.” After the spectators had presumably left, the

judge welcomed the jury and stated that he “called in extra

jurors today for jury selection,” and that the courtroom did

not “have much audience room.”

During jury selection, the judge excused five potential

jurors based on peremptorychallenges before taking a fifteenminute recess. When jury selection reconvened, another nine

potential jurors were excused because of peremptory or forcause challenges. In total, fourteen potential jurors were

excused before the jury and the two alternates were

empanelled. At no point during jury selection did Dharni’s

attorney object to any absence of Dharni’s family members

or other spectators. The record does not indicate whether any

familymembers or other spectators returned to the courtroom

as jurors were excused and seats opened up.

The jury convicted Dharni. He appealed his conviction

to this court, but did not challenge the judge’s request

that family members and spectators leave the courtroom

until seats became available. See United States v. Dharni,

324 F. App’x 554 (9th Cir. 2009). We affirmed his

conviction. Id. at 556.

In 2010, Dharni filed the instant motion to set aside his

conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 before the district court. 

In the motion, he raised two claims for the first time: that the

district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 5

trial by requesting that spectators leave the courtroom during

voir dire, and that his trial and appellate counsel ineffectively

assisted him by failing to object or appeal from the court’s

request that family members and spectators leave the

courtroom.1

The district court denied Dharni’s motion. The court held

that as of Dharni’s trial date, “it was an open question if the

Sixth Amendment right to a public trial extended to jury

selection and voir dire.” Regardless, the court determined

that the request that spectators, including family members,

leave the courtroom temporarily was at most a trivial closure

that did not implicate the Sixth Amendment values behind the

right to a public trial. Because any closure of the courtroom

during jury selection was trivial, the court concluded, Dharni

suffered no prejudice from his counsel’s failure to object or

appeal, which doomed his ineffective assistance of counsel

claim. Dharni appeals from the judgment denying his

motion. We review Sixth Amendment and ineffective

assistance of counsel claims de novo. United States v.

Ivester, 316 F.3d 955, 958 (9th Cir. 2003); United States v.

Rodrigues, 347 F.3d 818, 823 (9th Cir. 2003). We also

review de novo the denial of a federal prisoner’s motion

under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See, e.g., United States v. AguirreGanceda, 592 F.3d 1043, 1045 (9th Cir. 2010).

1 Dharni also challenged other decisions of his trial and appellate

counsel as ineffective. The district court rejected his arguments. He has

not appealed those challenges in his opening brief, so he has waived them. 

See Smith v. Marsh, 194 F.3d 1045, 1052 (9th Cir. 1999).

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6 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

II.

We first address Dharni’s substantive Sixth Amendment

claim. The Sixth Amendment “directs, in relevant part, that

‘[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the

right to a speedy and public trial. . . .’” Presley v. Georgia,

558 U.S. 209, 212 (2010) (per curiam) (alterations in

original), quoting U.S. Const. amend. VI. Contrary to the

district court’s ruling, the public trial right extends to voir

dire, and did so on the date of Dharni’s trial. Id. at 213

(observing that “the question then arises whether it is so well

settled that the Sixth Amendment right extends to jury voir

dire,” and stating that “[t]he point is well settled” under

Supreme Court decisions from the 1980s).

In some circumstances, though, the exclusion of

spectators from a trial proceeding does not implicate the

constitutional right. United States v. Rivera, 682 F.3d 1223,

1229 (9th Cir. 2012). “Trivial” exclusions do not infringe

upon the values behind the right. Id., quoting Ivester,

316 F.3d at 960. Those values are: “‘(1) to ensure a fair trial,

(2) to remind the prosecutor and judge of their responsibility

to the accused and the importance of their functions, (3) to

encourage witnesses to come forward[,] and (4) to discourage

perjury.’” Ivester, 316 F.3d at 960, quoting Person v.

Williams, 85 F.3d 39, 43 (2d Cir. 1996); see also Rivera,

682 F.3d at 1229 (explaining that trivial closures do not

implicate the values of “ensuring fair proceedings; reminding

the prosecutor and judge of their grave responsibilities;

discouraging perjury; and encouraging witnesses to come

forward”).

The district court’s request that familymembers and other

spectators go out to the hall during voir dire until seats

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 7

became available was at most a trivial closure that does not

implicate the Sixth Amendment. The judge specifically

stated that spectators should “wait out in the hall during jury

selection until seats open up.” Spectators were therefore free

to reenter the courtroom to observe the voir dire as jurors

were excused. The court even took a recess after seats had

“open[ed] up.” Five spectators were free to reenter the

courtroom for the remainder of voir dire after the recess.

 There is, however, no evidence in the record that the

district court took additional affirmative steps to invite family

members or other spectators back to the courtroom after seats

opened up. It would have been better under these

circumstances to make that invitation clearer, possibly by

sending a courtroom deputy clerk outside the courtroom to

determine if anyone wanted to return. But Dharni has offered

no evidence, nor have we found any evidence in the record,

that court personnel prevented the spectators from reentering

the courtroom.

In a case not cited by the parties, we held that a closure

did not implicate the Sixth Amendment where a courtroom

was not large enough to accommodate all spectators who

might wish to view a trial and the district court never

affirmatively expelled members of the public. United States

v. Shryock, 342 F.3d 948, 974 (9th Cir. 2003). Given that the

district court judge specifically authorized family members

and spectators to reenter when seats were available, the

insufficient seating for spectators and family members for a

limited period of time of uncertain duration did not violate

Dharni’s rights. Id. at 974–75.

There is further support for this conclusion in the Second

Circuit’s well-reasoned decision that excluding a single

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8 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

spectator from observing a portion of voir dire was “too

trivial to warrant the remedy of nullifying an otherwise

properly conducted” criminal trial, when that spectator was

allowed to watch the remainder of voir dire after more space

became available in the courtroom. Gibbons v. Savage,

555 F.3d 112, 121 (2d Cir. 2009).

Therefore, the request that familymembers and spectators

leave the courtroom until seats became available was at most

a trivial courtroom closure that did not implicate Dharni’s

Sixth Amendment rights, and the district court did not err in

denying Dharni’s motion on this ground.

III.

Dharni is entitled to relief on his claim of ineffective

assistance of counsel only if he establishes both that his

counsel performed deficiently and that such deficient

performance prejudiced him. United States v. Thomas,

417 F.3d 1053, 1056 (9th Cir. 2005); see also Turner v.

Calderon, 281 F.3d 851, 872 (9th Cir. 2002) (explaining that

“[c]laims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel are

reviewed according to the” same standard that applies to trial

counsel). Because the request for family members and

spectators to leave the courtroom was at most a trivial closure

that did not violate the Sixth Amendment, the failure to object

to the request or appeal the conviction on that ground was not

deficient performance. Nor could those failures have

prejudiced Dharni, because even if counsel had objected or

appealed, Dharni’s conviction would not have been disturbed. 

The district court did not err in rejecting Dharni’s ineffective

assistance of counsel claims.

AFFIRMED.

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