Court Opinion

ID: 9482892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:04:00.957944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:16.265452
License: Public Domain

POOLE, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting:
After reviewing the proceedings in this case in light of the petition for rehearing, I *1366am convinced that a mistake has been made that cannot be cured by the mere change of nomenclature represented by the majority’s amendments to the opinion. To alleviate what the judge and prosecutor deemed the victim-witness’s distress at having to go through the ordeal of recounting her experience before the defendant’s family members, the judge expelled the family members from this portion of the proceedings. From some experience, I share the judge’s concern. But I know also that a trial judge has many means of controlling the behavior of spectators short of banishment from the public courtroom.
The majority’s amendments to the opinion in response to this concern are a nostrum premised on a faulty conclusion: “The closure order was narrowly tailored to protect Bennally and elicit her information.” I disagree, and the summary application of this label ignores the principles which call for a forewarning by the trial judge — an effort to maintain order through less drastic means than the expulsion of friends and family. Attendees cannot be simply thrown out of the courtroom unless the judge can make supportable findings that order can not be maintained through less drastic means. Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 48, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 2216, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984).
Charley’s family members were given no admonishment about maintaining the requisite decorum, no second chance. In fact, they were given no sign that the judge felt any need to demand order before expulsion. There is no indication that decorum could not have been maintained by some less drastic step and, contrary to the majority’s amendments, no indication that the judge considered less drastic alternatives. There was not the slightest effort to confine sanctions or threats of sanctions to the specific individuals who might be deemed the responsible actors. An experienced judge should be expected to use all measures necessary for order and decorum— and no more.
Finally, in its examination of the procedural propriety of the closure order the majority cites to Press Enterprise, Brook-lier and Sacramento Bee, all of which involve the exclusion of the press from trials. The press brings to the absent public the narrative of the trial. The family and friends of the defendant are part of the very public whose interest in presence is protected. Thus, the considerations which must be serviced in admitting the press, public and family are similar but not identical, and stem from different sources. Our case law treatment of free press/fair trial in no way explains why unwarned family or friends, spectators from the body public, should be ousted from an otherwise public trial.
Because the expulsion order in this case was precipitous, not supported by the record, and shut off access where access is vital, not only to the miscellaneous defendant or spectator but to the institution, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s amended opinion.