Court Opinion

ID: 9638117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:33:46.50123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:03.838043
License: Public Domain

GOODRICH, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
The affirmance of the judgment of the trial court in this case seems to me correct. However, I believe the rule laid down concerning the right of the defendant to be present in court is somewhat overelaborate and, therefore, a possible source of misunderstanding. In Snyder v. Massachusetts, supra, 291 U.S. at page 129, 54 S.Ct. at page 341, 78 L.Ed. 674, 90 A.L.R. 575, Mr. Justice Roberts, speaking for the dissenters, said: “The trial as respects the prisoner’s right of presence in the Constitutional sense, does not include the formal procedure of indictment or preliminary steps antecedent to the hearing on the merits, or stages of the litigation after the rendition of the verdict, but does comprehend the inquiry by the ordained trier of fact from beginning to end.” (See, also, similar language 291 U.S. at page 132, 54 S.Ct. at page 342, 78 L.Ed. 674, 90 A.L.R. 575.) The basis of dissent was that the majority said that due process of law was not violated when the defendant got something less than this, but neither majority nor minority held that he should be given more. This is what the defendant, here, seeks when he complains of his absence during a discussion of a question of law in the courtroom when the jury was not present. It seems to me there was no violation of constitutional guarantees in this.