Opinion ID: 343469
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Trial.

Text: 20 The general rule is that this right, taken together with the right to due process, includes a right of both defendants and their counsel to be present at all stages of the trial from arraignment to verdict and discharge of the jury. See Rogers v. United States, 1975, 422 U.S. 35, 38-9, 95 S.Ct. 2091, 45 L.Ed.2d 1. But, like so many other rights, this one is not absolute. For example, an unruly defendant may be excluded and the trial may be continued in his absence. Illinois v. Allen, 1970, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353. The Court has said that the existence of a right to be present depends upon a conclusion that absence could, under some set of circumstances, be harmful. Due process does not assure the privilege of presence when presence would be useless, or the benefit but a shadow. Snyder v. Massachusetts, 1934, 291 U.S. 97, 106-07, 54 S.Ct. 330, 332, 78 L.Ed. 674 (Cardozo, J.). 21 Moreover, even improper exclusion of a defendant from a critical portion of the trial does not automatically require reversal, if in the particular case the defendant's absence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Rogers v. United States, supra, 1975, 422 U.S. at 40, 95 S.Ct. 2091 (dictum); Bustamante v. Cardwell, 9 Cir., 1974, 497 F.2d 556. Our decision on the appeal is, at the least, a holding that the judge's questioning of the jurors after the verdict was proper and sufficient. See 500 F.2d at 880-87. Moreover, our decision in Parker v. United States, supra, is just as applicable to the post-verdict interviews of the jurors as to the pre-verdict interviews. 1 The rights to a public trial and to due process were not improperly infringed. 22