Court Opinion

ID: 9429429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:45.436105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.588839
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I agree that in this case the trial judge erred in closing the voir dire proceeding and in refusing to release a transcript of that proceeding without appropriate specific findings that nondisclosure was necessitated by a compelling governmental interest and was narrowly tailored to serve that interest. I write separately to emphasize my understanding *514that the Court does not decide, nor does this case require it to address, the asserted “right to privacy of the prospective jurors.” Ante, at 510.
Certainly, a juror has a valid interest in not being required to disclose to all the world highly personal or embarrassing information simply because he is called to do his public duty. We need not decide, however, whether a juror, called upon to answer questions posed to him in court during voir dire, has a legitimate expectation, rising to the status of a privacy right, that he will not have to answer those questions. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425, 458 (1977); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 599 (1977).1
*5151 am concerned that recognition of a juror’s privacy “right” would unnecessarily complicate the lives of trial judges attempting to conduct a voir dire proceeding. Could a juror who disagreed with a trial judge’s determination that he had no legitimate expectation of privacy in certain information refuse to answer without a promise of confidentiality until some superior tribunal declared his expectation unreasonable? Could a juror ever refuse to answer a highly personal, but relevant, question, on the ground that his privacy right outweighed the defendant’s need to know? I pose these questions only to emphasize that we should not assume the existence of a juror’s privacy right without considering carefully the implications of that assumption.
Nor do we need to rely on a privacy right to decide this case. No juror is now before the Court seeking to vindicate that right. Even assuming the existence of a juror’s privacy right, the trial court erred in failing to articulate specific findings justifying the closure of the voir dire and the refusal to release the transcript. More important, as the trial court recognized, the defendant has an interest in protecting juror privacy in order to encourage honest answers to the voir dire questions.2 The State has a similar interest in protecting juror privacy, even after the trial — to encourage juror honesty in the future — that almost always will be coextensive with the juror’s own privacy interest. Thus, there is no need to determine whether the juror has a separate assert-able constitutional right to prevent disclosure of his an*516swers during voir dire. His interest in this case, and in most cases, can be fully protected through the interests of the defendant and the State in encouraging his full cooperation.
With these qualifications, I join the Court’s opinion. I agree that the privacy interest of a juror is a legitimate consideration to be weighed by a trial court in determining whether the public may be denied access to portions of a voir dire proceeding or to a transcript of that proceeding. I put off to another day consideration of whether and under what conditions that interest rises to the level of a constitutional right.

 As to most of the information sought during voir dire, it is difficult to believe that when a prospective juror receives notice that he is called to serve, he has an expectation, either actual or reasonable, that what he says in court will be kept private. Despite the fact that a juror does not put himself voluntarily into the public eye, a trial is a public event. See Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 374 (1947). See also Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U. S. 596 (1982); Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S. 555 (1980); Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S. 368 (1979). And, as the Court makes clear today, voir dire, like the trial itself, is presumptively a public proceeding. The historical evidence indicates that voir dire has been conducted in public and most prospective jurors are aware that they will be asked questions during voir dire to determine whether they can judge impartially.
On other hand, courts have exercised their discretion to prevent unnecessarily intrusive voir dire questions. See Sprouce v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. Cas. 375 (1823) (“[In England]. . . the juror is not obliged to answer any question tending to fix infamy, or disgrace, on him . . .”); Ryder v. State, 100 Ga. 528, 535, 28 S. E. 246, 248 (1897) (“Certainly, neither the court nor counsel should ask any question which would involve a breach of the juror’s privilege to refuse to answer on the ground that so doing would tend to incriminate, or otherwise disgrace, him”). More recent cases have relied, however, not on juror privacy, but on the trial judge’s discretion to limit voir dire to protect juror safety or to prevent irrelevant questioning. See, e. g., United States v. Barnes, 604 P. 2d 121, 140 (CA2 1979), cert. denied, 446 U. S. 907 (1980); United States v. Taylor, 562 F. 2d 1345, 1355 (CA2), cert. denied sub nom. Salley v. United States, 432 U. S. 909 (1977).

 In closing the voir dire and in refusing to release the transcript, the trial court relied on both the defendant’s right to a fair trial and a juror’s right to privacy. It did not make clear whether it interpreted the California Supreme Court’s decision in Hovey v. Superior Court, 28 Cal. 3d 1, 616 P. 2d 1301 (1980), to require closure, see ante, at 511, n. 11, or whether it concluded that the defendant had an additional interest in protecting juror privacy to encourage juror honesty. In any event, it concluded that the interests of the jurors and the defendant were consistent and that both required the protection of juror privacy.