Court Opinion

ID: 9723772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:30:42.805345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:20.231810
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I dissent from the majority holding that Appellant waived his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The majority opinion infers the waiver from Appellant’s failure to object to the trial court order after it was made. The Appellant’s obj ection to the prosecutor’s motion was prop*164erly made after the prosecutor made his motion, and reads as follows:
MR. LYONS:
May it please the court. My understanding of the Constitution is that a defendant is entitled to a trial which, among other things, is to be public. The defendant would like to ask the court to protect all of his constitutional rights.
This objection was offered to the trial court for its consideration prior to its ruling. That is the normal and most rational procedure. In addition, a party does not have to object or take an exception to a trial court ruling or order in order to preserve the error on appeal. An objection is properly made to opposing counsel’s motions, petitions, or questions and that is exactly what Appellant’s counsel did here. He could and need not do anything further to preserve that alleged error on appeal once the trial court ruled against him. Thus there was no “silence” from which the majority opinion may infer a waiver.
Even if Appellant had remained silent, I believe it is error to infer a waiver of a fundamental right from mere silence. This proposition has been stated too often to require extensive treatment. Johnson v. Zerbst (1937), 304 U. S. 458, 82 L. Ed. 1461, 58 S. Ct. 1019, 146 A. L. R. 357. Fay v. Noia (1963), 372 U. S. 391, 9 L. Ed. 2d 837, 83 S. Ct. 822.
The majority attempts to support its waiver argument by holding that Appellant “consented” to the trial court order by requesting that his law clerk and a detective be excluded from the effect of the trial court ruling. I believe this is also erroneous. It is obvious that Appellant’s attorney’s request was to permit him to retain two persons in the courtroom whose presence was necessary to the attorney for proper defense of the case. It was in no sense an offer to compromise the trial court ruling on the public trial issue. On that issue, *165Appellant objected at the proper time and lost the argument when the trial court ruled against him. There was no procedural step he could or needed to take to preserve the error on appeal. What was he to do, refuse to go on with the trial? Appellant’s counsel did what any good attorney would have done. He lost on his objection and he proceeded to make the best of that situation by attempting to keep his assistants with him. A defense attorney should be permitted to lose an objection and be free to make the next tactical move available to protect his client’s rights. Of course, Appellant makes no assertion that trial counsel was incompetent; in my view, counsel at trial represented his client adequately and I fail to see how his failure to claim otherwise is relevant to this case.
Jackson, J., concurs.
Note. — Reported in 258 N. E. 2d 628.