Court Opinion

ID: 9498928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:32:39.951063+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:10.396342
License: Public Domain

SACK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part.
I agree completely with most of the panel opinion. But I find the so-called “triviality” issue to be more difficult than do my colleagues. I would therefore have preferred to await the return of this case to this panel pursuant' to oür Jacobson remand, if indeed it does return, to determine, if we then must, whether under the circumstances presented, “the actions of the court and the effect that they had on the conduct of the trial deprived the defendant — whether otherwise innocent or guilty — of the protections conferred by the Sixth Amendment.” Panel opinion, ante at [540] (quoting Peterson v. Williams, 85 F.3d 39, 42 (2d Cir.), cert denied, 519 U.S. 878, 117 S.Ct. 202, 136 L.Ed.2d 138 (1996)); see also id. at [540] (“This .analysis turns on whether the closure subverts the values the drafters of the Sixth Amendment sought to protect: 1) to ensure a fair trial; 2) to remind the prosecutor and judge of their responsibility to the accused and the importance of their functions; 3) to encourage witnesses to come forward; and 4) to discourage perjury.’ ” (quoting Peterson, *54285 F.3d at 43)); Carson v. Fischer, 421 F.3d 83, 95 (2d Cir.2005) (concluding that a closure “was not sufficiently substantial to implicate the Sixth Amendment”). The looming possibility of what we have referred to as the “ ‘windfall’ of a new trial” for the petitioner, Nieblas v. Smith, 204 F.3d 29, 32 (2d Cir.1999) (quoting Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 50, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984)), is, of course, a matter of concern.