Court Opinion

ID: 9575978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:19:08.964771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:31.456960
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
—I concur. In general the analysis and result of the majority opinion are sound.
However, I cannot so readily accept the trial court’s belated reliance on “court security” as an additional reason for the temporary closure.
*388When defense counsel saw the closure Sign he moved for a mistrial. The court denied the motion forthwith, but agreed to remove the sign immediately. Obviously “court security” was not the reason for the court’s prompt action: it was a day later, manifestly as an afterthought in an effort to improve the record, that the court declared defendant’s trial also posed security risks. If such risks were really a problem, one must wonder why the court ordered the sign removed.
I believe our opinion should have made it abundantly clear that even defendants who are security risks—not excluding those charged, as here, with murders and other acts of violence—have the constitutional right to a public trial. (U.S. Const., 6th and 14th Amends.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 15; see also Pen. Code, § 686, subd. 1.) There are ample methods of preventing potential disturbances in the courtroom without violating constitutional guaranties.
Nearly a century ago this court declared in People v. Hartman (1894) 103 Cal. 242, 245 [37 P. 153]: “The doors of the courtroom are expected to be kept open, the public are entitled to be admitted, and the trial is to be public in all respects, . . . with due regard to the size of the courtroom, the conveniences of the court, the right to exclude objectionable characters and youth of tender years, and to do other things which may facilitate the proper conduct of the trial.”
With the foregoing caveat, I join in the majority opinion.