Court Opinion

ID: 9482957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:06:18.904606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:19.266415
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment of the court on the ground that requiring the defendant to stand trial in prison garb was, on this record, harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
Requiring a defendant to appear before a jury in prison garb is a serious breach of standard criminal trial procedure. Here, the jurors saw three individuals, all attired in the same color jumpsuit, seated with defense counsel. As the district court noted, a jumpsuit is “hardly the striped prison uniform of yesteryear.” Tr. at 382. Yet, a jury sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the government’s case against the defendant was also able to understand the significance of this attire. I therefore find it disturbing that the majority seems to limit the Supreme Court’s holding in Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976), to situations where the prisoner designation on the clothing is more graphic. I certainly hope that prison authorities and trial courts within this circuit view this intimation with prudence and caution. Estelle is still the law of the land. It recognizes that trial in prison garb is a “constant reminder of the accused’s condition implicit in such distinctive, identifiable attire.” Estelle, 425 U.S. at 504-05, 96 S.Ct. at 1693-94. Trial courts are obliged under its mandate to ensure that the defendant’s prison clothing is not “a continuing influence throughout the trial.” Id. at 505, 96 S.Ct. at. 1693. In implementing this rule, “reason, principle, and common human experience,” id. at 504, 96 S.Ct. at 1693, are to be the guide.
My brothers also rely on the doctrine of waiver to support their position. Waiver is an important — indeed vital — principle in the fair and orderly conduct of all litigation, including criminal litigation. While the cold record is always an unsatisfactory device for assessing the informal interchanges between court and counsel, my review of this record leaves me with a lingering doubt — indeed a substantial doubt — as to whether full responsibility for the situation before us should be placed at the feet of defense counsel. It seems that a more cooperative atmosphere between the court *723and both counsel could have ensured that the guilty pleas of the co-defendants were accepted before the selection of the jury. (It appears that counsel for the co-defendants had at least informally made known their clients’ plans, although intermediaries had apparently not informed the court. Tr. at 138.) It also seems that the matter of clothing could have been worked out somewhat more informally. In any event, once counsel raised the matter, the damage should have been minimized by permitting the change at the earliest possible opportunity.1
The record in this case does not reveal an excess of cooperative communication between court and counsel. When matters such as those under scrutiny here arise, all the professionals involved — court, government counsel, and defense counsel — have an obligation to resolve them (and have an interest in resolving them) courteously and expeditiously. These issues never should have reached this court, because they never should have arisen at trial.

. Counsel’s later reference to the prison garb can be viewed as a tactical choice (perhaps ill-advised) to minimize the damage of the court’s earlier rulings.