Opinion ID: 807595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reclamation

Text: Jones’s continued exclusion from trial also implicates Allen’s dictate that “[o]nce lost, the right to be present can . . . be reclaimed as soon as the defendant is willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respect inherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings.” 397 U.S. at 343.5 The Connecticut Supreme Court found no error in the trial court’s refusal to let Jones come back to court on February 4, the day after this initial removal. See infra fn. 3. 5 As noted supra fn. 4, the events of February 4 can be characterized to some extent as a second exclusion, not just a continuation of the first, which implicates whether the second removal was itself warranted rather than whether the refusal to let Jones reclaim was. As noted infra, it would be hard to say that a second exclusion would be warranted based on Jones’s interaction with the marshal alone, but given that Jones was never actually returned to court, and thus never regained the right to presence, the better analysis is probably the reclamation analysis undertaken by the majority. 9 The court wrote that it acknowledged that Jones originally had refused to return to court in full body restraints but thereafter agreed to do so. In other words, as between banishment from the courtroom and returning to the courtroom fully restrained, the defendant expressed a preference for the latter. Although it may be true that a court normally should defer to the preference of the accused in this regard, we are not persuaded that the court was required to do so in the present case. First, the court understandably was concerned that, due to the defendant's demonstrated propensity for violence, he posed a particular danger to the personnel responsible for transporting him to and from the courtroom. For those persons, even attempting to outfit the defendant with body restraints gave rise to a safety risk. Second, the court reasonably concluded that, under all of the circumstances, including the defendant's volatile temper, his habitual unwillingness to accept adverse court rulings, his confrontational attitude toward the marshals and his lack of contrition for his prior violent behavior, the defendant was very likely to engage in disruptive and obstreperous conduct if permitted to return to the courtroom. Finally, as the trial court observed, the need for and use of visible restraints undoubtedly would have prejudiced the defendant in the eyes of the jurors. In light of the relevant considerations, in particular, the nature and severity of the defendant's misconduct, his refusal to acknowledge the impropriety of that misconduct and his stubbornly antagonistic attitude, we cannot say that the trial court acted unreasonably in concluding that the defendant should not be allowed to return to the courtroom. Jones, 281 Conn. at 642-44. The majority finds each of these conclusions reasonable applications of Allen. I disagree entirely. Taking first the conclusion that the “nature and severity of” Jones’s misbehavior allowed not just for his removal, but his permanent exclusion from the courtroom, I turn back to Allen, which presented similar facts. The Allen defendant was extremely disruptive, even before the jury, and continued to be despite multiple warnings and removals. He also threatened the judge and made “abusive” and “vile” comments throughout the proceedings. And yet in considering his case the Supreme Court still held that a defendant—previously engaged in vile, abusive and threatening behavior—who promises to comport himself appropriately can reclaim his right to be present. Such a conclusion is unsurprising. A defendant who is attempting to reclaim his right to presence is, by definition, a person who has previously been so disruptive so 10 as to have been removed. It would not only be circular to say that past disruption itself prevents reclamation, but also a perversion of Allen, the holding of which would be made meaningless in light of this circular logic. That Jones’s disruptions involved violent behavior does not change this conclusion. The defendant in Allen was, if not violent, threatening, and yet he still was able to reclaim his right. Even if that were not so, Allen does not limit its holding to any particular class of misbehavior. The Court did not hold there that a defendant can reclaim his right unless he commits a violent act or unless the court has “concern[s] for [] safety.” Maj. Op. 27. Rather, it tells us unequivocally that “[o]nce lost, the right to be present can . . . be reclaimed as soon as the defendant is willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respect inherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings.” 397 U.S. at 343. Neither the Connecticut Supreme Court, nor we, have the right or the power to read in a limitation where none exists. To the extent Jones’s violent behavior was relevant, I am troubled by some of the considerations made by the majority in its analysis. First, the majority notes that the trial court was aware of the fact that “after a previous adverse pretrial ruling, Jones had punched his hand through a Plexiglas window.” Maj. Op. 27. But that incident took place outside of the courtroom, and thus is completely irrelevant to whether Jones could be excluded from his trial. Allen, and the power it gives to courts to conduct proceedings in a defendant’s absence, is about decorum in the courtroom, not about a defendant’s behavior outside of it. The Allen court framed the “[t]he question presented [in that case] . . . [a]s whether an accused can claim the benefit of this constitutional right to remain in the courtroom while at the same time he engages in speech and conduct which is so noisy, disorderly, and disruptive that it is exceedingly difficult or wholly impossible to carry on the trial.” 397 U.S. at 338 (emphasis added). Jones’s violent 11 out-of-court conduct cannot be excused nor condoned, and there are many punishments which could have been constitutionally imposed in response. But exclusion from trial is simply not one of them. Exclusion under Allen is simply not a punishment at all; it is a merely a means of preventing defendants from disrupting trial proceedings, not a way of punishing them if they do. Likewise, I am concerned by the majority’s suggestion that Jones’s violent nature and the crimes, which he was at the time accused and is now convicted of committing, are relevant to the court’s decision to exclude him. The majority writes that [t]he trial court was faced with a violent defendant. Putting aside the evidence that he had violently assaulted Minnifield and shot Williams to death, Jones had reacted violently (albeit outside the courtroom) to one adverse ruling, and had in the court's presence violently resisted the removal order, requiring numerous marshals to restrain him, at least one of whom was injured in the fray . . . Maj. Op. 28. See also Maj. Op. 30 (“Jones, who was charged with murder, was violent both within the courtroom and without, had injured a marshal in resisting compliance with a court order, and had expressly threatened further violence.”). The majority is almost certainly right that Jones was a violent person, and probably even a bad one. But the right to presence belongs to the peaceful and the pugnacious, as well as the murderous and the mad. This conclusion should warrant no remark: Since anyone exercising his right to presence is, by default, a person accused of a crime, the right would mean little if being accused, or even guilty of a crime, could undermine it. Nothing in Allen even remotely suggests that a person’s character or their crimes are appropriate to consider when determining whether he can reclaim his right to be present. Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, Allen does not limit, qualify or otherwise constrain the right to reclaim to those people who are not inherently violent or who have not been arrested for violent crimes. No matter what Jones had done, no matter what his character, he had a right to be present during his trial. 12 Even if we appropriately limit our analysis to Jones’s violent behavior inside the courtroom, the majority still misreads Allen by suggesting that Jones could and forever waive his right to return to court based on the incident of February 3. Maj. Op. 28 (“Jones manifestly waived his right to be present based on the extraordinary violence he had displayed during the preceding removal.”). But this is simply without any support from Allen. While Allen certainly supports the notion that a defendant can waive his right to be present based on violent behavior, in no sense does it support the proposition that there are some acts which might forever disqualify a person from attending their trial. The whole of Allen’s framework of warning and reclamation cuts against any such argument, and nothing in its holding on reclamation is in any way qualified or limited. Perhaps there are some acts so heinous that once committed by a defendant in court they have forever lost their right to presence, but if so, the Supreme Court has yet to tell us what they are. That is not to say that safety in the courtroom is an irrelevant consideration; of course, it is not. But that is why the Supreme Court has dictated alternative, constitutional means of ensuring that safety—namely shackles and gags. The majority finds the state court did not err in crediting the trial court’s refusal to allow Jones into the courtroom, even bound and gagged, but I fail to see how this constitutes a reasonable application of Allen. It is right, as the majority notes, to say that Allen indicates “that the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury’s feelings about the defendant.” 397 U.S. at 344. But Allen also held that “bind[ing] and gag[ging] [the defendant], thereby keeping him present” was a constitutional means for a court “handle an obstreperous defendant.” Id. at 343-44. The Court additionally noted that “binding and gagging might po[s]sibly be the fairest and most reasonable way” to handle such a defendant. Id. at 344. 13 Thus, while binding and gagging are certainly problematic, they are constitutional. What is not constitutional is removal of a defendant without warning and without allowing him to reclaim once he has made the required promise. It cannot fairly be said that it was more in accord with Allen and the constitutional right to presence to have wrongfully excluded Jones, failed to warn him that continued misbehavior would lead to further exclusion, and finally refused to allow him to return after he promised to behave appropriately, than to have allowed him to attend his trial in shackles. On this point, I note that the majority’s conclusion that “it was not clear that Jones had consented to being shackled,” Maj. Op. 27-28, is unwarranted by the trial record. While Jones’s counsel remarked that Jones “didn’t address the issue of restraints” in his discussion with counsel, the Marshal indicated afterwards that Jones was “in agreement that he [Jones] will still in full restraints.” Even after the marshal changed his assessment, he indicated that the conversations with Jones took place “in the process of putting the restraints on him.” Though the marshal ultimately concluded that Jones should not be brought to court, he never indicated that Jones had refused in any way to be shackled, or that it was his assessment that it was too dangerous for his deputies to attempt to do so. I find the majority’s analysis to be thus factually and legally wrong. This leads to the state court’s error in confusing disruption with likelihood of disruption and the majority’s adoption of that error. The Connecticut Supreme Court wrote that the [trial] court reasonably concluded that, under all of the circumstances, including the defendant’s volatile temper, his habitual unwillingness to accept adverse court rulings, his confrontational attitude toward the marshals and his lack of contrition for his prior violent behavior, the defendant was very likely to engage in disruptive and obstreperous conduct if permitted to return to the courtroom.’ Jones, 291 Conn. at 643. See also Maj. Op. 27. 14 This statement, and the trial record it relies upon, constitutes an unreasonable reading of Allen, which gives absolutely no succor to the proposition that the defendant’s likelihood of reoffending is sufficient to deny him the chance to try to behave appropriately. The majority does not argue that Jones’s behavior with the marshal was itself sufficient to exclude him; indeed, it would be hard for such a conclusion to be warranted, given that the strongest statement the marshal made about Jones’s behavior in the moment was that he was being “somewhat confrontational.” The marshal’s view was clearly not that Jones was behaving too improperly to be brought into court, which would present a different, and perhaps easier, question, but rather that he was likely to misbehave if brought back. The marshal told the court that his “feeling [was] [Jones] just wants to get in the courtroom to cause further discomfort,” and that he couldn’t “guarantee that a possible outburst won’t happen again. I think it’s just a matter of time before one does occur again. . . ” The trial court relied fully on this future likelihood: “I'll also find that, based on the [marshal's] assessment ... were [the defendant] allowed into the courtroom, it is very likely that he will cause additional disruptions before the jury . . . possibly result[ing] in further injuries to either court personnel, the jury, witnesses or spectators for that matter.” (emphasis added). I do not disagree that Jones was likely to continue misbehaving. He may even have been especially likely to do so in light of the fact that he was never warned that such behavior would lead to his exclusion. But the defendant in Allen, who was continually disruptive, even after two removals from the courtroom and repeated warnings, could also be said to be likely to reoffend. He, if anyone, was likely to “cause additional disruptions before the jury,” but the Supreme Court still told us he could reclaim his right on his promise to comport himself appropriately. The mere fact that we are considering a question of reclamation means we are considering a 15 defendant who has already been so disruptive that he has been removed from court. Such a person is almost by definition likely to reoffend, or, in the words of the majority, be a person “with no ability to control his temper and [an] unwilling[ness] to comply with court rulings or orders from the marshals.” Maj. Op. 27. Yet Allen counsels us that even such a person is entitled upon his promise to behave to return to court, despite the likelihood that will almost certainly exist in any such case that he will not do so. There is simply no support in Allen for the proposition that a defendant can either be excluded in the first instance or not allowed to reclaim his right to presence based on what he is likely to do. I further note that the state court’s conclusion that exclusion was warranted because Jones “refus[ed] to acknowledge the impropriety of that misconduct and his stubbornly antagonistic attitude” is completely erroneous. In the first instance, Jones was never given the chance to “acknowledge the impropriety of his misconduct,” at least before the court, since he was never returned to court after the initial wrongful removal. And Allen in no sense supports the notion that “a stubbornly antagonist attitude” undercuts the right to reclaim; it firmly stands against it, given the defendant in that case’s behavior. Apologies or regret are not necessary under Allen; only a promise to behave is required. That is perhaps the most crucial point the majority opinion elides. Allen refers to the “constitutionally permissible” means for a trial judge to deal with a disorderly defendant as “tak[ing] him out of the courtroom until he promises to conduct himself properly.” 397 U.S. at 344 (emphasis added).6 This language clearly posits the promise as the trigger point for the 6 The majority argues that this language is dicta because Allen “affirmed a defendant’s exclusion from the courtroom.” Maj. Op. 32. fn. 10. But Allen affirmed the defendant’s removal in part because when he promised that he would behave, he was allowed to return— despite the “evidence his word [could not] be relied upon . . . [and] the record of prior misconduct he ha[d] compiled,” id. This language about promise cannot then be passed off as dicta so easily. 16 defendant’s ability to return. Once the promise is made, the defendant can return, unless and until he demonstrates that he will not conduct himself properly. That promise was made in this case, because although Jones was never given the opportunity to make the required promise to the trial judge himself, or to do so formally, he gave the marshal “his word” that there would be “no further outbursts.” Once this was done, the state court was obligated to give Jones himself the chance to show that he was “willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respect inherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings,” id. at 343. Only if and when he failed to do so could he be constitutionally removed from court.