Opinion ID: 4527147
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Waller Requirements

Text: ¶48 The right to a public trial is not absolute; it must in some situations yield to other rights or interests, including a defendant’s right to a fair trial or the state’s interest in protecting sensitive information. Waller, 467 U.S. at 45. But as the Supreme Court has observed, such circumstances “will be rare.” Id. In Press-Enterprise, a case grounded in the First Amendment, the Court held that closure requires an overriding interest: The presumption of openness may be overcome only by an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. The interest is to be articulated with findings specific enough that a reviewing court can determine whether the closure order was properly entered. 27 Press-Enter. Co., 464 U.S. at 510. ¶49 In Waller, the Court relied on Press-Enterprise and directly incorporated these factors into its Sixth Amendment analysis of the public trial right. 467 U.S. at 45–46, 48. Thus, to justify closure of the courtroom, (1) the party seeking to close the proceeding must advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced; (2) the closure must be no broader than necessary to protect this interest; (3) the court must consider reasonable alternatives to closing the proceeding; and (4) the court must make findings adequate to support the closure. Id. at 48. Where the courtroom is closed and these factors are not met, the defendant’s right to a public trial is violated. Id. at 48–49. ¶50 Importantly, the erroneous deprivation of the right to a public trial is structural error. Weaver, 137 S. Ct. at 1908; Hassen, ¶ 7, 351 P.3d at 420. Such error is structural not because it necessarily renders a trial fundamentally unfair in every case, but “because of the ‘difficulty of assessing the effect of the error,’” and because the public trial right “also protects some interests that do not belong to the defendant,” namely the rights of the public and the press. See Weaver, 137 S. Ct. at 1910 (quoting United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 149 n.4 (2006)). Where, as here, the defendant objects at trial to such error and raises the issue on direct appeal, the defendant generally is entitled to automatic reversal regardless 28 of the error’s actual effect on the outcome of the trial. Id.; Hassen, ¶ 7 & n.2, 351 P.3d at 420 & n.2.