Court Opinion

ID: 9489963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:29:15.040664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:49.533776
License: Public Domain

JACOBS and JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judges,
concurring:
We subscribe to the opinion of the Court, and agree in particular that we are required to reverse because of Ayala’s holding that a state judge violates the Sixth Amendment by closing the courtroom for the testimony of an undercover agent who is slated to return to the same duties at the same post, unless the court, on its own motion, has considered one or more lesser alternatives. See Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Dunn, 58 F.3d 50, 53-54 (2d Cir.1995), cert. granted, — U.S. —, 116 S.Ct. 1846, 134 L.Ed.2d 947 (1996); United States v. Ianniello, 808 F.2d 184, 190 (2d Cir.1986) (“This court is bound by a decision of a prior panel unless and until its rationale is overruled, implicitly or expressly, by the Supreme Court or this court en banc.”), overruled on merits en banc, United States v. Indelicato, 865 F.2d 1370, 1381-82 (2d Cir.1989).
We write separately to record disagreement with the Ayala holding. Ordinarily, adherence to a rule once adopted, perfect or not, serves so many useful objectives that it is pointless to record disagreement with it in a subsequent decision, let alone so soon after the opinion that announces the rule. This appeal, however, is the third occasion in recent days in which we have granted a writ of habeas corpus on the Ayala ground. See Okonkwo v. Lacy, 104 F.3d 21 (2d Cir.1997); Ayala v. Speckard, 102 F.3d 649 (2d Cir.1996). It is also remarkable that the state courts have adopted a contrary principle, People v. Martinez, 82 N.Y.2d 436, 444, 604 N.Y.S.2d 932, 624 N.E.2d 1027 (1993) (Kaye, C.J.), and seem to be perfectly ready to adhere to it, notwithstanding the Ayala decision. See People v. Pepe, — A.D.2d —, 653 N.Y.S.2d 101 (1st Dep’t 1997) (“To the extent that Ayala v. Speckard might require a different result, we decline to follow that ease.” (citations omitted)); see also People v. Lugo, 650 N.Y.S.2d 102, 103 (1st Dep’t 1996) (In resolving conflict between Ayala and contrary decision by New York Court of Appeals, the ruling of the New York Court of Appeals should be followed.); People v. Nieves, 648 N.Y.S.2d 583, 585 (1st Dep’t 1996). If the judges of the New York State courts, enforcing the United States Constitution by their own lights, decline to apply the Ayala principle, Ayala relief may be available only in federal court. Since Ayala imposes a sua sponte obligation on state judges that state courts may not recognize or enforce, ordinary principles of waiver (by failure to object and failure to address on direct appeal) may lose some force, and resort to habeas corpus to enforce the Ayala principle may become commonplace.
We respectfully disagree with the holding in Ayala that the kind of closure effected here is unconstitutional unless the trial judge gives sua sponte consideration to alternatives. In Ayala, the supposed basis of that principle is given as Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984), but Waller itself says nothing about sua sponte consideration of alternatives. Justice Powell, the author of Waller, earlier suggested that those who object to closure bear the burden of suggesting alternative measures. Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 401, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 2916-17, 61 L.Ed.2d 608 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring). The Third Circuit agrees. United States v. Raffoul, 826 F.2d 218, 225 (3d Cir.1987). But see Ayala, 102 F.3d at 653 n. 3 (acknowledging Justice Powell’s view, but noting that “[i]t could well be that Justice Powell altered his view in the interim”).
The Ayala opinion also leans heavily on Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 478 U.S. 1, 106 S.Ct. 2735, 92 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986), pointing out that the Supreme Court reversed a courtroom closure — in part for failure to consider alternatives — where there had been closure pursuant to an unopposed *832motion. Ayala, 102 F.3d at 653. But that case involved the First Amendment right of access to criminal proceedings. The consideration of alternatives sua sponte is more readily viewed as a necessary precaution in the First Amendment context, where often the parties asserting the constitutional right (usually the press and public) are not direct parties to the case.1
The Ayala principle seems to be singularly unproductive in terms of any incremental benefit to a defendant or to the values of an open and fair trial. Ayala suggests that there are “numerous obvious alternatives” to closure of the courtroom during testimony by the undercover agent, and describes several examples. 102 F.3d at 653 (emphasis added). Yet it is evident that the trial court was not required sua sponte to think of all of those particular alternatives; the constitutional error identified in Ayala is giving “zero consideration”. Id. But this rule raises a number of practical questions and objections. Is it enough to properly consider and reject one or more alternatives as unfeasible if some feasible alternative can be identified afterward on a petition for habeas corpus? What incentive is there for any defendant to identify alternatives to closure? How will anyone know if alternatives were considered if (as may be the case) the state courts recognize no need to give such consideration, either under state law or the federal Constitution? Specifically, in this case, how do we know that the trial court did not take the step that it took because it was a lesser measure than closure of the entire trial?
The three alternatives to closure listed in Ayala seem to us more problematical — and prejudicial to the defendant — than what was done, (i) Placing a screen in front of a witness would cloak the undercover agent with glamour; and may suggest to the jury that the defendant and the defendant’s friends and family are dangerous, (ii) That risk is only partially alleviated by asking the defendant whom he wants to remain in the courtroom (a step that may not have occurred to the trial judge here because the gallery was apparently nearly empty); we assume that a defendant has a great incentive under Ayala to be inclusive, and to insist that all the world witness what he regards as his unjust ordeal, (iii) Finally, use of a “disguise” — as the opinion in this case notes— could easily impair the jury’s opportunity to observe the witness and the defense’s opportunity to display the witness’s reactions on cross-examination (not to mention the issue of what would be an appropriate costume).
One irony of the Ayala rule is that this defendant’s habeas petition would be a whole lot stronger if the trial judge had rejected the closing of the courtroom, and ordered that the undercover agent testify in disguise notwithstanding the defendant’s objection. The opinion in this case properly notes that the alternatives to closure may themselves be disadvantageous to a defendant. Thus, the effect of all this is that we are compelled by our newly-minted precedent in Ayala to grant a writ of habeas corpus by reason of the trial court’s failure to make a record of considering unspecified alternatives to a step that in itself seems perfectly sensible — alternatives that need not be adopted and that (if adopted) might justify reversal or habeas relief on other grounds.

. There is also a question as to whether closure for the testimony of a single witness is a drastic measure that, under Waller, requires consideration of alternatives at all. In Waller the trial court closed the entire proceeding (a suppression hearing). Waller in turn relies on Press-Enterprise, in which the virtual whole of a six-week voir dire was closed.
Even if every clearing of a courtroom is deemed to be a measure that requires consideration of alternatives, the trial judge here— and in Ayala and in Okonkwo — may (for all anyone knows) have judged the one-witness closure to be the least exclusionary alternative that the court could think of unaided by any better suggestion from the parties. The judge did not cast his ruling in these terms; but why should we expect to see that? State law does not require such a statement; and neither did we, until recent days.