Opinion ID: 709030
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Additional Security Measures at the Trial

Text: 82 Appellant Amerson contends that other security measures implemented by the District Court during the trial also created the impression that the defendants were dangerous, thereby depriving the defendants of their right to an impartial jury. Amerson cites the following security measures in particular: (1) the large number of security personnel in the courtroom; (2) the two magnetometers through which entrants to the courtroom had to pass; (3) inspections of the belongings of defense attorneys, initially within view of arriving jurors; (4) the assembling of the jury in a secret location; and (5) the transportation of the jurors and the defendants to and from the Courthouse in vans operated by the United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri, with additional security including armed guards along the street, a convoy of police vehicles, helicopter surveillance, and snipers on the roof of the United States Court and Custom House in St. Louis. 83 It is possible for security measures employed during a trial to be so inherently prejudicial that they deprive a defendant of the right to an impartial jury. Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560, 570, 106 S.Ct. 1340, 1346, 89 L.Ed.2d 525 (1986). Nevertheless, not all security measures singling out the accused as potentially dangerous are unconstitutionally prejudicial. We have never tried, and could never hope, to eliminate from trial procedures every reminder that the State has chosen to marshal its resources against a defendant to punish him for allegedly criminal conduct. Id. at 567, 106 S.Ct. at 1345. A trial court's security decisions must be accorded broad discretion and may be reversed only for abuse. Hellum v. Warden, United States Penitentiary-Leavenworth, 28 F.3d 903, 907 (8th Cir.1994). Further, the burden of affirmatively demonstrating prejudice from security measures is on the defendant. United States v. Williams, 897 F.2d 1430, 1434 (8th Cir.1990). 84 Having reviewed the record, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its broad discretion to determine what security provisions to employ during a trial. As discussed above, see supra p. 1532, each of the nine defendants in this case was charged with participating in an extraordinarily violent criminal enterprise with a history of conflict with law enforcement. In light of the large number of defendants, the allegations levelled against them, and the organization to which they belonged, the District Court clearly had discretion to implement the security measures that it did. 85 Security measures similar to those employed during this trial have frequently been approved by this and other courts. The Supreme Court has approved the presence of armed, uniformed guards inside a courtroom. Holbrook, 475 U.S. at 570-71, 106 S.Ct. at 1346-47. In this case, the courtroom security personnel were unarmed and not conspicuously in uniform. We have approved the use of metal detectors outside a courtroom. Hellum, 28 F.3d at 907-08; United States v. Carter, 815 F.2d 1230, 1231 (8th Cir.1987). We upheld the sequestration of a jury in United States v. Lee, 886 F.2d 998, 1001 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1032, 1033, 1034, 110 S.Ct. 748, 751, 754, 107 L.Ed.2d 765, 768, 770 and 495 U.S. 906, 110 S.Ct. 1926, 109 L.Ed.2d 290 (1990), and in United States v. Faul, 748 F.2d 1204, 1221 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1027, 105 S.Ct. 3500, 3501, 87 L.Ed.2d 632 (1985). The Second Circuit approved secure transportation for the jurors to and from court as well as substantial numbers of armed guards on the premises in United States v. Maldonado-Rivera, 922 F.2d 934, 971 (2d Cir.1990), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1211, 1233, 111 S.Ct. 2811, 2858, 115 L.Ed.2d 984, 1025, 1026 (1991), a case involving four defendants tried for conspiracy to commit an armed bank robbery. We note that the crimes with which the defendants in this case were charged were more numerous and violent than those charged in Maldonado-Rivera. Thus substantial precedent supports the District Court's decision to implement these security measures. 86 Finally, we note that the jury in this case demonstrated that the security measures did not undermine its ability to be impartial by acquitting two of the nine defendants and by carefully selecting which predicate acts it found to be proven in regard to each of the other seven. See Paccione, 949 F.2d at 1193 (finding that the fact that the jury acquitted each of the defendants on several counts strongly indicates that [the use of an anonymous jury] did not induce any lack of objectivity.) 87 We conclude that the appellants have failed to meet their burden of affirmatively demonstrating that the security measures prejudiced the jury. We therefore hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion by implementing the security measures used during the trial.