Court Opinion

ID: 9847992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:11:01.568193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:53.434747
License: Public Domain

Coleman, J.,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that the appellant received a public trial based on a finding that the record contains “no evidence of such factors that would tend to dissuade the public from attending the trial . . . [and] nothing to indicate that the public did not have the ‘freedom of access’ to attend Dammerau’s trial.” I respectfully disagree.
The Nottoway Correctional Center is a medium security penitentiary completely surrounded by a perimeter fence with the traditional security of penal institutions. The permanent courtroom is totally within the confines of the penitentiary. I can conceive of few locations where freedom of access by the public is more restricted or few situations which tend to discourage or dissuade attendance by the public more than holding a trial in a *293courtroom within the confines of a penitentiary. On the record before us, I would reverse the conviction for failure to afford the accused his fundamental constitutional rights to a public trial and fair trial. I would remand the case for a new trial with directions that the proceedings be held in a courtroom of the circuit court at the county courthouse in accordance with Code § 17-14.
The majority suggests that a reversal based on the public trial guarantee would result in the adoption of a rule that jury trials held in courtrooms within a penitentiary are per se invalid. Relying on Jones v. Peyton and Caudill v. Peyton the majority concludes that Virginia has rejected such a per se rule. In my opinion, the majority misconstrues the Jones and Caudill holdings which, at most, reject a per se rule only in regard to trials held in a judge’s chambers. I do not construe Jones and Caudill to be so far-reaching as to preclude our holding as a matter of law that a jury trial held in a penitentiary for the purpose of trying an inmate for an offense allegedly committed within the prison is a denial of a public trial.
The practice of removing trials from the courthouse to a penitentiary, in the absence of any showing of overriding public necessity or justification, is, in my view, such an invidious practice and so offends traditional notions of fairness and the basic precepts of our criminal justice system that I would favor declaring that such trials are not public trials as required by the sixth amendment. “[T]he mere probability of deleterious effects on fundamental rights calls for close judicial scrutiny.” State v. Lane, 60 Ohio St. 2d 112, 115, 397 N.E.2d 1338, 1340 (1979). Short of the adoption of a per se rule that all trials held within a penitentiary are unconstitutional, I would, on the record before us and applying the “so-called freedom of access test” relied on by the majority, find that this trial was not public, absent a clear showing by the Commonwealth that the public’s freedom of access to this trial was unimpeded.
The public trial provision of the sixth amendment envisions that all trials will be held under surroundings and circumstances which do not unnecessarily inhibit public attendance or freedom of access. Under the majority view, a trial is “public” if conducted where persons who are bold, adventurous, or inquisitive enough to do so, take the initiative to determine how to gain access to a place that is purposefully designed to be inaccessible. If trials are to be held within a penitentiary and are to be declared “public” *294merely because as a matter of law the public was not excluded and would have been admitted had anyone chosen to attend, the guarantee of “public trial” is essentially worthless.
Furthermore, despite the disavowal by the majority that we are confronted with the issues of the right to a fair trial, the right to an impartial jury, equal protection, or the legality or propriety of holding trials away from the courthouse at the county seat, I believe that appellant has raised and properly preserved an objection that he was denied a fair trial, due process and an impartial jury. In fact, we only reach the sixth amendment public trial guarantee in the context of a fair trial and due process approach because “[the] public trial guaranteed in Federal criminal trials by the Sixth Amendment is so fundamental and essential to a fair trial that it is made applicable to state criminal trials through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Jones v. Peyton, 208 Va. 378, 380, 158 S.E.2d 179, 180 (1967) (citations omitted). The appellant consistently asserted that the denial of a public trial deprived him of a fair trial and an impartial jury, and both he and the Attorney General addressed due process issues in brief and at oral argument. However, since the majority does not address this aspect of the case, I limit my comments to noting that I am persuaded by appellant’s argument that he was denied a fair trial because holding the proceeding within the penitentiary (1) eroded the presumption of innocence, (2) compromised the jury’s ability to remain impartial, and (3) chilled the right to obtain witnesses who could testify openly. I believe that the rationale of Lane, 60 Ohio St. 2d 112, 397 N.E.2d 1338 (1979), relied on by the appellant, is persuasive and more applicable to the facts presented than the holdings in Jones and Caudill relied on by the majority. I would, therefore, reverse the conviction for the additional reasons that the denial of a public trial under these circumstances deprived the appellant of a fair trial and due process.