Court Opinion

ID: 9700126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:11:41.528435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:41.552443
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge
(dissenting).
The instant case must be viewed against the backdrop of the defendant’s right to be present at every stage of his trial and the trial court’s right to take suitable steps, including removal of the defendant if necessary, to prevent an unruly defendant from disrupting his trial and/or prejudicing himself by his own antics before the jury determining his guilt or innocence.
When appellant in this case, after all the evidence had been adduced, interrupted with curses the prosecutor’s final argument to the jury, the trial court removed him from the courtroom.1 Defense counsel asked for and was denied a mistrial. Then he advised the trial judge that appellant “says he wants to come back in” but “very candidly ... I just think there will be another outburst.” [Emphasis added.]
From the vantage point of hindsight I agree that it would have been better for the court itself to have questioned appellant in open court out of the jury’s presence before ordering the trial to proceed without appellant. However, given the posture of the trial, viz., all the evidence in *284and only the completion of argument and instruction remaining, the potential for irreparable prejudice to appellant’s case if he engaged in yet another outburst and his own counsel’s prediction that exactly that would occur, and the history of appellant’s past bizarre conduct,2 I can appreciate why the trial court acted as it did.
Under the particular facts of this case I cannot agree that reversal of appellant’s conviction for armed robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon is required. My conclusion rests upon these factors.
First, unlike Wade v. United States, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 356, 441 F.2d 1046 (1971), the evidence at trial that appellant here committed the crimes of which he was convicted was overwhelming. The manager of the grocery store appellant robbed in broad daylight knew him from past encounters and was particularly watchful upon seeing him enter the store. The manager positively identified appellant as the particular person who wielded a shotgun during the robbery. The behavior of appellant and his confederate prior to the robbery also attracted the attention of a clerk, who unequivocally identified appellant at trial as the gunman during the robbery. This clear evidence of guilt reduces the possibility that any prejudice flowing from appellant’s exclusion tipped the scale toward conviction. See Ware v. United States, 376 F.2d 717, 718 (7th Cir. 1967).
Second, appellant’s enforced absence from the courtroom was during those parts of the trial where his presence could be of the least possible assistance to his counsel, viz., closing argument of counsel and instructions to the jury. Cf. Ware v. United State, supra at 718.3
Finally, while it is of course impossible to say unequivocally that appellant’s absence had no effect on the jurors (it might be speculated one or more would consider that absence as a personal affront or challenging act of defiance), the trial court several times instructed the jury to “consider the defendant’s guilt or innocence on the basis of the evidence that is presented from the witness stand.” I am unwilling to speculate that the jury ignored this simple and straightforward charge and voted to convict upon considerations other than the overwhelming evidence of guilt presented in the form of testimony from the witness stand.
In sum, I believe under the precise facts and particular circumstances of this case that the trial court’s error in failing to question appellant personally before proceeding without appellant through the completion of argument and rendition of instructions was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Rogers v. United States, 422 U.S. 35, 95 S.Ct. 2091, 45 L.Ed.2d 1 (1975); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 105 (1967) ,4 I am satisfied that justice was done at the trial and I would affirm the conviction.

. Appellant had been warned prior to trial that any such behavior would constitute a waiver of his right to be present and lead to his removal.

. Prior to trial defense counsel, tlie prosecutor and another judge who had participated in pretrial proceedings all commented on possible difficulties that might occur during trial.

. I find Wade v. United States, supra, distinguishable because there the defendant was absent from the courtroom for the court’s supplemental instruction, rendered after the jury had announced it was deadlocked. This instruction contained the so-called Allen charge, see Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 17 S.Ct. 154, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896), and, as the Circuit Court pointed out, since the ease was obviously close the instruction was crucial and therefore the presence of defendant before the jury at that critical point would have been meaningful.

.The majority opinion asserts that we cannot say with “any degree of certainty” what “might liave happened” had appellant been present during argument to and instruction of the jury. X think it quite certain on the basis of common sense and experience that appellant’s presence — unless he resumed his shouting and cursing — would have had no effect on the formulation of the judge’s applicable legal principles in the charge and the delivery by the advocates of their respective summations. Also, I think we are justified on the basis of the court’s explicit instruction to the jury and the strength of the government’s case in concluding his presence would have made no difference in the jury’s verdict.