Opinion ID: 203289
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Courtroom Closures

Text: In a separate pro se brief, Bucci maintains that reversal of his convictions is necessary because the district court committed structural error by closing the courtroom to the public on two occasions. Because Bucci failed to object at trial, we review only for plain error. See United States v. Thomas, Nos. 98-1051, 98-1052, 98-1116, 2000 WL 236481, at , ___ Fed. Appx. ___, ___ (2d Cir. Feb.14, 2000) (unpublished summary disposition) (applying plain error analysis to purported violation of defendant's right to public trial). The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to a public trial. Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 46, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984); Owens v. United States, 483 F.3d 48, 61 (1st Cir.2007). Bucci argues that the district court erred by closing the courtroom during jury selection and later during a contempt proceeding against Raftery. We decline to address his challenge to the purported closure during jury selection at this time because it is not yet ripe. Although Bucci has attempted to submit additional evidence to supplement the Spartan record, it remains inadequate to permit meaningful review. Bucci will have an opportunity, if he so chooses, to present this argument in a petition for collateral relief before the district court. At that point, the district court may hold an evidentiary hearing to test the merits of Bucci's claim. See id. at 66. Bucci also argues that the district court erred by closing the courtroom during the contempt proceeding against Raftery. During this hearing, the Government called its next prospective witness, Raftery, to the stand. As expected, Raftery refused to testify, despite a grant of immunity. He indicated that he was concerned about potential perjury charges due to conflicts between his anticipated testimony and the statements he made before the grand jury and federal agents. The district court placed Raftery in civil contempt and warned him of the possibility that criminal contempt charges might be filed against him should he not testify. Despite these remonstrations, Raftery persisted in his refusal to testify. At the end of the hearing, the district court ordered that Raftery be taken into immediate custody. Bucci's argument is flawed in two ways. First, the Sixth Amendment's requirement that a trial be public does not apply with its usual force to criminal contempt proceedings. See Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 616, 80 S.Ct. 1038, 4 L.Ed.2d 989 (1960). Here, the district court specifically indicated that Raftery would be set free if he agreed to testify. Thus, the contempt order was civil, not criminal, in nature. See Int'l Union, United Mine Workers of Am. v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 827-28, 114 S.Ct. 2552, 129 L.Ed.2d 642 (1994). Civil contempt proceedings are not governed by the Sixth Amendment and require fewer procedural protections. See United States v. Winter, 70 F.3d 655, 661 (1st Cir.1995) (stating that a court may impose civil contempt sanctions pursuant to . . . minimal procedures but that criminal contempt sanctions may be imposed only if the court provides certain constitutional protections); accord Santibáñez v. Wier McMahon & Co., 105 F.3d 234, 242-43 (5th Cir. 1997) (holding that protections of Sixth Amendment do not apply to civil contempt proceedings); Northeast Women's Ctr., Inc. v. McMonagle, 939 F.2d 57, 68-69 (3d Cir.1991) (explaining that arguments predicated on the Sixth Amendment are inapposite to civil contempt proceeding); In re Di Bella, 518 F.2d 955, 958 (2nd Cir.1975) (rejecting challenge to courtroom closure in civil contempt context). Consequently, not even Raftery himself, much less Bucci, could have invoked the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial during the civil contempt hearing. Second, the contempt proceeding against Raftery was almost entirely collateral to Bucci's own trial and, thus, any closure did not infringe Bucci's Sixth Amendment right. See Petito v. Artuz, 69 Fed.Appx. 26, 28 (2d Cir.2003) (unpublished summary disposition) (rejecting defendant's Fifth Amendment challenge to court's decision to exclude him from contempt proceeding against recalcitrant witness); United States v. Melchor Moreno, 536 F.2d 1042, 1047 n. 7 (5th Cir.1976) (explaining that [t]he usual Sixth Amendment rights of cross-examination were only peripherally at stake here, since the hearing did not relate to guilt but to the collateral issue of whether [a witness's Fifth Amendment] privilege was properly invoked); see also Brown v. Kuhlmann, 142 F.3d 529, 541 (2d Cir.1998) (holding that courtroom closure during trial itself did not infringe defendant's Sixth Amendment rights where it involved cumulative testimony related to matter collateral to charged offense); United States v. Gallagher, 576 F.2d 1028, 1040 (3d Cir.1978) (finding no error where trial judge cleared courtroom, not excepting even attorneys, to explore possible self-incrimination issues related to witness). During this particular closure, no evidence was presented against either defendant; the defendants and their counsel were permitted to remain; and the courtroom was promptly reopened at the conclusion of the contempt proceeding. In the end, the temporal proximity and causal relationship between Bucci's criminal trial and the civil contempt hearing against Raftery did not necessarily render the two proceedings one and the same. Although Bucci undoubtedly enjoyed a right to compulsory process under the Sixth Amendment to call Raftery as a witness, he lacked any converse right to prevent him from testifying. Put differently, he had no cognizable constitutional interest under the Sixth Amendment in Raftery's refusal to testify when called by the Government. Thus, although it would have been better practice for the trial judge to have made specific record findings justifying his decision to close the courtroom, see Waller, 467 U.S. at 44-47, 104 S.Ct. 2210, on these facts and under a plain error standard of review, Bucci suffered no constitutional deprivation.