Court Opinion

ID: 9483812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:31:57.491276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:50.689394
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Harry Watkins declined to attend his trial. He would not come out of his cell. *1423Watkins told the prison s chief psychologist on the morning trial was to begin: “It’s principles, I refuse to go to court.” He and the psychologist had had a similar conversation the day before, with Watkins asserting that “on principle” he would refuse to attend and that “[i]f taken to court I will strip down and be butt-naked [sic: buck naked?] in the courtroom.” Prison administrators would not take “no” for an answer. Guards dragged Watkins out of his cell. Watkins swore at them and resisted by going limp. The guards dressed Watkins and dumped him into a wheelchair. Marshals trundled him off to court, where he refused to speak with his attorney. In the courtroom Watkins did his best imitation of a sack of flour, slumping forward with his head on the table. The district court removed Watkins from the courtroom and the trial proceeded to a verdict of guilty — which my colleagues reverse because they conclude that the record does not establish, with sufficient clarity, a waiver of the right to be present during trial. Watkins was mute, and muteness is not waiver. Yet we know that a defendant waives his right to be present by the simple act of not showing up. Taylor v. United States, 414 U.S. 17, 94 S.Ct. 194, 38 L.Ed.2d 174 (1973); Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(b). No need for elaborate warnings and waiver on the record. Watkins did what he could to stay home, failing only because the guards dragooned him. It is bizarre to reverse a district judge for simultaneously accommodating a defendant’s wishes and preserving decorum in court.
Watkins is an intelligent, educated person. For almost six years he worked as a taxpayer service representative with the Internal Revenue Service. There are two ways to understand his behavior: (1) he did not want to attend his trial; (2) he was suffering from mental problems that left him unable to make an informed choice. If the former, the verdict should stand; if the latter, the mental instability requires a retrial. Which is it? Obviously Watkins has mental problems. The nature of his crime and the unorthodox method he chose to communicate his wish show as much. A psychiatrist and a psychologist, one retained by each side, examined Watkins. At a hearing the day before trial began, they agreed that Watkins could understand the proceedings and assist in his own defense. One testified that any psychotic episodes were of short duration and characterized by “a reflexive response when [he] feel[s] threatened to try to run people off”. The judge declared Watkins fit for trial. Whatever one can say about Watkins’ conduct the next day, it was not a “reflexive response” of short duration characterized by aggressive behavior. For three days Watkins had been fasting, announcing to the guards and the prison psychologist his wish to skip the trial. After his exclusion from trial, he did not ask to return; he has never said that the judge interpreted his actions incorrectly. Nothing about this sequence of events implies that Watkins was for a brief period unable to control his actions or appreciate their significance. That leaves explanation (1): Watkins made a conscious choice, which, although communicated in an inappropriate manner, was a decision nonetheless.
Bypassing the question whether Watkins waived (or at least forfeited) his right to be present at trial, my colleagues criticize the district judge’s handling of the situation. The criticisms take several forms but reduce to “dissatisfaction that the court ... adhere[d] rigidly to a preset schedule.” At 1422. In other words, the district judge resisted Watkins’ attempts to disrupt orderly judicial processes — and a majority reverses because it believes that the judge should have permitted the gambit to succeed! Is there a difference between a “preset schedule” and any old schedule? A “schedule” is a timetable established in advance. At all events, I understand the refrain “adhere rigidly to a preset schedule” as derogatory. Why should we belittle efforts to accommodate jurors, witnesses, and lawyers, all of whom, like the judge, have other things to do? Judges must apportion time among the many claimants and reduce the tax the judicial process imposes on the lives of others, some of whom are victims of crime and others of whom assist in the determination *1424of cases. When some litigants appropriate more time by behaving like spoiled brats, litigants who observe the rules receive less. Dignity in court serves important functions unrelated to the allocation of time. Persons who impede the operation of a court— that is, who by misconduct divert judges from their “preset schedule” — may be imprisoned summarily for contempt. United States v. Wilson, 421 U.S. 309, 315-18, 95 S.Ct. 1802, 1806, 44 L.Ed.2d 186 (1975); In re Chase, 468 F.2d 128, 136 (7th Cir.1972). How is it, then, that minimizing disruption becomes a ground of reversal?
As it happens, the judge did not “adhere rigidly to a preset schedule”. Watkins was not present at 9:00 a.m., when the trial was supposed to begin; his antics delayed his arrival. The judge heard from counsel at 9:45 a.m. After a recess, during which the judge did legal research, Watkins appeared in person at 10:12 a.m. and demonstrated the conduct that had been described to the judge. Jury selection started 81 minutes late. Immediately after lunch the judge returned to the subject. Still a fourth interruption, later that afternoon, was devoted to the testimony of the guards and prison psychologist. Not much by way of trial was accomplished that first day, a fact illustrated by the page numbers of the transcript. Only 93 pages (25 concerning Watkins’ conduct) were needed to record the proceedings, compared with 200 or more for a normal trial day. A one-day trial turned into a two-day trial. If this is “adher[ing] rigidly to a preset schedule”, then I have lost my grip on the English language.
A reader of the majority’s opinion might think that the question is whether Watkins’ impersonation of Raggedy Andy for three minutes is “misconduct” sufficient to justify exclusion under Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). Not at all. Allen sought to attend and disrupt his trial. Our questions are whether Watkins wanted to attend the trial at all and, if not, whether that preference was the product of volition as opposed to mental disability. A hearing the day before trial concerning Watkins’ mental state, coupled with the testimony of the prison psychologist that Watkins was alert and in command of himself when he refused to emerge from his cell on the morning of trial, show that Watkins is accountable for his decision. Whether a person surrendered his right to attend the trial is a question of fact, and appellate review is deferential. Judge Conlon’s finding that Watkins did not want to attend the trial is not clearly erroneous; it is all but compelled by the record. If, as the majority believes, the judge neglected to make findings with sufficient detail, we should remand for that purpose rather than reverse the conviction.
What remains is the possibility that the record was not properly assembled. During the afternoon session at which the guards and psychologist testified about the events at the prison, Watkins was absent. The majority points out that he could have been produced and speculates that "his counsel may well have been able to induce him, upon confrontation with the testimony of the officers, to present his own account or to assist counsel in the cross-examination of these witnesses.” At 1421. Anything is possible in a world of quantum mechanics. Is this probable? Once again recall that Watkins himself has never said anything of the kind. At the close of the first day, the judge issued an invitation to return; Watkins stayed put. My colleagues fear that the invitation may not have reached Watkins’ ears or might not have sunk in, but Watkins has never denied receiving and understanding the judge’s words. What is more, there has been time and notice aplenty since trial, yet Watkins has not asked for a hearing. He did not produce an affidavit stating what he would have done had he been present. He does not provide any facts that contradict or add perspective to the testimony. Indeed, as I keep repeating, he has never once said or even intimated that he wanted to be present for a single instant of the trial or ancillary proceedings.
The only way to have assembled the record in Watkins’ presence during the afternoon would have been to drag him to court a second time. Must a court coerce the *1425accused’s presence? It may do so; a defendant has no right to trial in absentia. Taylor, 414 U.S. at 20, 94 S.Ct. at 196; Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 457, 32 S.Ct. 250, 254, 56 L.Ed. 500 (1912); Rule 43(a). But coercion is not obligatory. Proceedings may continue if the accused is “voluntarily absent after the trial has commenced (whether or not the defendant has been informed by the court of the obligation to remain during the trial)”. Rule 43(b)(1). Watkins was present at the outset, see Crosby v. United States, —7 U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 748, 122 L.Ed.2d 25 (1993), which is all the rule requires. I would worry about the circularity of saying that Watkins did not want to attend the hearing — when his desires were the thing to be inquired into — if he had dropped a clue that he wanted to be there, or if he had questioned the accuracy or veracity of the testimony given in his absence. He has done none of these things, and the court was entitled to respect his wishes.
Watkins will receive the court’s opinion in ill humor, I expect. He wanted to sit out the trial and avoid conviction. He achieved the first but not the second, and now we give him the second but not the first. His sentence was ten months’ imprisonment, which he has completed. There will be no retrial unless the prosecutor is sufficiently vindictive to want Watkins to spend a few more months on supervised release. No one is well served by this disposition — not Watkins, confined to prison without a clear outcome to the charges; not the recipients of his threats, deprived of such balm as a conviction of their torturer supplies; and not the judicial system, which loses an important part of its ability to carry on in the face of guerrilla warfare by defendants.