Court Opinion

ID: 9464301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:30:25.711238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:34.098509
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially):
Although I agree with the majority’s result, I feel that the analysis in this case requires clarification. By implication the majority, despite its disclaimer that it has not decided the constitutional issue, has determined that the right to the presence of the trial judge during closing argument in this case was not fundamental to a fair trial. This determination is necessarily subsumed in the majority’s analysis because if the right were fundamental to a fair trial here, then any error, no matter how negligible, would require reversal of Boswell’s conviction. As stated in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827-28, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), “there are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error.” I agree with the majori*1344ty’s implied finding that substitution of the magistrate during closing argument did not so infringe Boswell’s substantial rights as to require an outright reversal as a matter of law.
I would go beyond the majority’s determination that the trial judge’s absence in this case was not prejudicial and hold that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. It is my understanding that Chapman and its progeny require this stringent standard, rather than the more lenient lack-of-prejudice standard used by the majority, when constitutional error has occurred in a trial. My determination that the error here was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt obviates the necessity of reaching the issue whether the requirement of the trial judge’s presence during final argument to the jury is a right of constitutional dimension.