Court Opinion

ID: 9476720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:03:24.676586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:28.203591
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the crucial question in this case is whether appellant made a knowing and intelligent waiver of his right to be present at the selection of the jury. I do not agree, however, that a knowing and intelligent waiver may only be found when a defendant has made a declaration in open court, nor that the legal advice on which such a waiver rests must attain the lofty standards imposed by the majority. Because the record gives ample support to the trial court’s finding of a knowing and voluntary waiver, I respectfully dissent,
I. Waiver Through Counsel Rather Than in Open Court
Defense counsel informed Gordon of his constitutional right to be present at voir dire and of possible tactical disadvantages in exercising that right.1 Based on this information, Gordon decided not to exercise this right, and defense counsel conveyed that decision to the court. The one previous case in this circuit on point suggests that such a waiver — without the court’s explaining his rights to the defendant and indeed without any direct colloquy between the court and defendant — was altogether valid. In United States v. Washington, 705 F.2d 489 (D.C.Cir.1983), 13 prospective jurors who had answered affirmatively to general questions were further questioned at the bench, out of the hearing of the defendant. After six had been questioned, counsel requested that the defendant be allowed to participate, but the trial court refused, and the remaining seven were also questioned at the bench. A panel of this *130court found error in the sidebar examination of the last seven, explaining,
In normal cases the defendant upon request should be allowed to observe and hear juror responses made at the bench. But because it is a right infrequently exercised and usually delegated to counsel, unless a specific request is made for the defendant to participate at bench examinations of prospective jurors, such right shall be deemed to have been waived.
Id. at 497. The court explicitly stated, “[W]e do not think the right to be present during voir dire is on the same level as, for example, entering a plea or the presentation of evidence.” Id.
Washington indicates that, despite the unquestioned value of the right to be present at voir dire, waiver of that right requires no extraordinary measures. Indeed, it makes clear that silence alone will suffice to waive the right when the defendant is present and examinations are being conducted out of his or her hearing. In the instant case, an express waiver by the defendant was made on the advice of counsel and then communicated to the court. In light of Washington, the district court was justified in supposing that no more was required.
In finding to the contrary, the majority relies primarily on Cross v. United States, 325 F.2d 629 (D.C.Cir.1963), a decision thoroughly undermined by later Supreme Court authority. In Cross defendant’s counsel advised the court, at the end of a recess, that the defendant (who was in custody) declined to return to the courtroom. The trial court proceeded without him. This court held that presence at trial was so vital that it was improper to proceed without first securing an on-the-record statement by the defendant in open court. In Taylor v. United States, 414 U.S. 17, 94 S.Ct. 194, 38 L.Ed.2d 174 (1973) (per curiam), however, a defendant (not in custody) disappeared after the trial began. Trial proceeded to conviction. Defendant later complained that his disappearance could not be treated as a waiver, as he had not been warned that he had a right to be present and that the trial would continue in his absence. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the claim. The waiver by conduct was fully effective without evidence that defendant was aware of the consequences.
It is true, of course, that here as in Cross the defendant was in custody, so that further colloquy as to the basis of his waiver would have been possible. But if the Supreme Court had regarded an on-the-record judicial explanation of the defendant’s options as important, it could in Taylor have simply required trial judges to routinely instruct the defendant on the consequences of flight. The Court’s opinion is hardly consistent with the Cross court’s apparent belief that waiver in open court is (where physically possible) necessary to justify any absence, no matter how minute.
Cross is even more clearly undermined by United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 105 S.Ct. 1482, 84 L.Ed.2d 486 (1985). There the Court held that defendants’ silent acquiescence in the judge’s in camera interrogation of a witness constituted a waiver of their rights under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43. Id. at 529, 105 S.Ct. at 1486. In Gagnon there was no problem of the defendants’ being absent. The trial court could readily have given them an explanation of their rights under Rule 43 as they related to the colloquy; the Court was clear that she need not do so. Nor, indeed, was there evidence that defense counsel had so much as mentioned to defendants their right to be present at the interrogations.
Thus our decision in Washington, that a defendant may waive his right to participate in jury selection without the trial court’s giving him a detailed explanation of his options, is well supported by Supreme Court decisions. Any implications to the contrary in Cross plainly lack such support.
Despite Washington, the majority equates the right to be present at voir dire with the right to be present at the presentation of evidence, citing only a dissent in United States v. Alessandrello, 637 F.2d 131, 151 (3rd Cir.1980) (Higginbotham, J., dissenting), cert, denied, 451 U.S. 949, 101 *131S.Ct. 2031, 68 L.Ed.2d 334 (1981). Judge Higginbotham suggested that a defendant’s intimate knowledge of the facts of the case might give him special sensitivity-in assessing “individual prejudices or inclinations of the jurors” revealed in the voir dire. Id. at 151. But defendant here (as was also true in Alessandrello) makes no claim that any such sensitivity was relevant to the jury selection. Instead, using information that he could have secured from counsel the moment he joined him at the counsel table (and for all we know did secure), defendant raises merely a garden-variety concern about a prospective juror’s prior work in law enforcement and relation to other law enforcement officers (brother, brother-in-law). The decision not to use a peremptory challenge on such a juror is a standard judgment call that defense counsel must make every day; there is no reason to believe that a defendant will have unique insights on the issue. Certainly Gordon has revealed none.
The court blithely justifies the new requirement by characterizing it as a “slight additional burden on the criminal justice process.” Maj. at 125. That remains to be seen. Most obviously, this approach leaves Washington in considerable doubt. There the court regarded a defendant’s silence during portions of the voir dire conducted at the sidebar as effecting a valid waiver. But if defendant’s presence at these inquiries is as important as the court now declares, it is hard to see why. Unless the judge makes the sort of general anticipatory warning that the Supreme Court said was unnecessary in Taylor and Gag-non, there is no way of knowing whether defendants are aware of their right to be present at such colloquies or of the consequences of foregoing the right: a loss of the opportunity to evaluate or respond to things that may be said or facial expressions that may be revealed. Further, since this case itself involves no more than a judgment conventionally made by lawyers, it draws in doubt the validity of all commitments made at sidebar conferences, in the absence of an explicit judicial statement of defendant’s rights.
II. Sufficiency of Counsel’s Advice
The court does not stop at finding a requirement that a waiver of the right to presence during jury selection must occur in open court and on the record. Quite apart from that, it would evidently decline to hold the waiver knowing and intelligent. Maj. at 126. This conclusion, resting on a careful hindsight examination of the advice supplied by Gordon’s lawyer, makes an end-run around the law defining the effective assistance of counsel.
When he discovered that the panel of prospective jurors had been brought into the courtroom before Gordon, his lawyer doubtless could have formulated a broader set of choices for Gordon than he did. Besides the ones he presented — delaying his entrance until a jury had been selected (foregoing the right to participate) and entering under the wing of the marshals (revealing the fact of his custody) — there was the possibility of asking the judge to have the jury panel withdrawn, to allow Gordon to get settled in the courtroom, and then to bring the jury back. All this is obvious now, as we examine it free from the surprise created by the delay in securing Gordon’s street clothes and the speed of the jury panel’s appearance.2
This evaluation of defendant’s waiver is in substance an evaluation of the effectiveness of his counsel. Once Gordon’s complaint is recognized as such, there can be little doubt that it fails.3 To succeed on such a claim, a defendant must show first that “counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,” *132Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), and second that “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different,” id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2064. With regard to the first showing, Strickland makes plain that a court evaluating effectiveness must resolutely avoid the omniscience of hindsight:
Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential. It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel’s assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable____ A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time. Because of the difficulties inherent in making the evaluation, a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the defendant must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action “might be considered sound trial strategy.”
Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065 (citation omitted). Further, the reviewing court must “recognize that counsel is strongly presumed to have rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.” Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066; see United States v. Barbour, 813 F.2d 1232, 1234 (D.C.Cir.1987).
Here, the court characterizes the neglected alternative solution — a request that the court order the jurors’ panel temporarily withdrawn to permit defendant to enter— as “obvious.” Maj. at 126. But that characterization, so easy from appellate chambers after perusal of the briefs and record, is based upon precisely what the Supreme Court forbade in Strickland: reliance on hindsight, second-guessing of counsel, and disregard of counsel’s perspective at trial. The district court described appellant’s retained counsel as “very experienced and able,” Mem.- op. at 4, Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 139, and nothing in the record undermines that conclusion. Nor does anything suggest that counsel’s judgment call troubled appellant until, after conviction, he and new counsel combed the record for possible error. When appellant first observed the jury selected in his absence, he asked for counsel’s opinion of it. Counsel replied, “Well, I got the best I could get.” J.A. at 133. So far as appears, appellant did not at the time contest the judgment.
One can hardly disagree with the district court’s own observation that the matter might have been handled better. Mem. op. at 7-8 n. 2, J.A. at 142-43 n. 2. But Strickland emphatically prohibits application of any such standard. By contrast, the majority’s approach ignores the realities of trial and the frailties of human nature. Given the benefit of Strickland’s strong presumption, defense counsel’s advice on voir dire qualified as effective assistance of counsel, and the waiver was therefore necessarily knowing, voluntary and intelligent.4
Since the first part of the Strickland test is not satisfied, it may be superfluous here to delve into the second part. The majority’s harmless error standard, however, completely reverses the allocation of burden. While Strickland requires that the defendant prove prejudice, 466 U.S. at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 2067, the harmless error *133standard requires the government to show lack of harm beyond a reasonable doubt.
Further, Strickland instructs that in evaluating the impact of the challenged decision, the reviewing court must presume that the jury or judge acted according to law. Prejudice cannot be inferred merely because an alternative approach might have led to a favorable verdict because of “the possibility of arbitrariness, whimsy, caprice, ‘nullification,’ and the like. A defendant has no entitlement to the luck of a lawless decisionmaker____” 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S.Ct. at 2068. Under the majority’s approach, there appears to be such an entitlement. Here, the majority does not assert even a remote chance that the voir dire procedure here led to an incorrect verdict, merely that it deprived appellant of a possible fluke. For that fluke to take effect, defendant would have had to persuade counsel to exercise a peremptory challenge against the juror linked to law enforcement, and that juror’s replacement would have either to have turned the jury around or at least (to secure a hung jury) to have held out for acquittal.
Astute counsel in this circuit will doubtless recognize the opportunities presented by this decision. Defendants who lose before the jury may now secure appellate review of any tactical decision made by counsel and defendant. That review may be conducted free of Strickland’s limits, even though it will in essence be no more than a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
* * #
Our decision in Washington militates strongly against any requirement that waivers of attendance at jury voir dire must occur in open court; that view is well-supported by the Supreme Court decisions in Taylor and Gagnon, allowing waivers by action (in Taylor) and silence (in Gagnon) to be effective without the trial court’s fully advising the defendant of his rights and canvassing his options. The majority’s further finding that appellant’s waiver was not knowing and intelligent thoroughly undermines the Supreme Court’s criteria for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, with potentially serious implications for criminal adjudications in this circuit. I dissent.

. The trial court, after a hearing in which defendant and defense counsel testified, found the former incredible, the latter credible. Joint Appendix ("J.A.”) at 140. Given our duty to respect the findings of fact by district courts unless clearly erroneous, Campbell v. United States, 373 U.S. 487, 493, 83 S.Ct. 1356, 1360, 10 L.Ed.2d 501 (1963); see generally 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 374 (1982), I am baffled by the majority’s gratuitous expression of skepticism as to that credibility determination. See Maj. at 126 ("even accepting [defense counsel’s] description ..., as the district court did,” no knowing and intelligent waiver could be found).

. Brief for Appellee at 9 indicates that the delay was caused by the late arrival of the street clothes brought by a member of appellant’s family. Testimony by appellant’s attorney at the Motions Hearing also suggested that the jury was brought in unusually quickly. J.A. at 131. The precise cause for the delay is unclear, but even so, it is reasonably clear that unforeseen circumstances required a revision of prior plans immediately before trial.

. Indeed, the district court found defendant’s ineffective counsel claim to be frivolous, and defendant does not challenge that determination on appeal.

. It is worth noting that even in the sensitive area of custodial interrogation, where law enforcement officers must provide warnings of legal rights and the consequences of waiver, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), comprehensiveness is not required. See Colorado v. Spring, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 851, 93 L.Ed.2d 954 (1986) (person arrested in illegal purchase of firearms may be questioned on criminal record without being informed that answers might be used against him in murder trial not related to firearms episode).