Court Opinion

ID: 9430402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:39.833253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.371373
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I write only to explain my reading of the Court’s statement that “in our supervisory capacity, we might express a prefer*573ence that officers providing courtroom security in federal courts not be easily identifiable by jurors as guards . . . Ante, at 572 (emphasis added). In joining the opinion, I interpret the Court’s carefully qualified statement in this case — a state case — as containing no suggestion that federal officers providing security must doff their uniforms before entering federal courtrooms, and certainly none of the three cases the Court cites, ante, at 572, n. 5, would require any such arbitrary action. Moreover, the issue of what kind of security arrangements some might “prefer” is, of course, quite distinct from issues such as whether a federal defendant would become entitled to a new trial because of an alleged prejudicial effect of the security measures used at his trial. On this understanding, I join the Court’s opinion.