No Sixth Amendment Violation From A Defendant’s Request to Close the Courtroom Because Closure Did Not Seriously Affect the Fairness of the Judicial Proceedings

State of Minnesota v. Benton, Minn.S.Ct., 1/28/2015.  During Mr. Benton’s jury trial he made two requests to the trial court to close the courtroom.  The trial court granted both requests without objection by the state.  During the first courtroom closure Mr. Benton complained about some testimony that had been received in evidence and about his dissatisfaction with his trial counsel.  During the second courtroom closure Mr. Benton asked to be absent from that day’s proceedings.  During that discussion Mr. Benton was apparently in restraints and dressed in a jail jumpsuit.

On appeal, Mr. Benton said that these courtroom closures violated his Sixth Amendment right to to a public trial.  Justice Anderson, writing for a unanimous court, rejected this argument.  Justice Anderson did so for two reasons:  first, Mr. Benton invited the alleged error and the alleged error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity,or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.  This “invited error” doctrine has been applied in courtroom closures in the past.  State v. Kortness, 284 Minn. 555, 170 N.W.2d 210 (1969).  Even in an “invited error” situation, an appellate court is still required to review the error if it seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.  Such review is akin to plain error review.  Mr. Benton not only consented to the courtroom closures he requested them.  He made the requests in the belief that they would benefit his defense.  Mr. Benton cannot, therefore, meet the “seriously affect” test.

Mr. Benton also complained about the admission of relationship evidence.  The court had admitted such evidence that was against persons other than the victim of the offense for which he was on trial.  He said that such non-victim relationship evidence should not have been admitted and that the probative value of that evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.  Justice Anderson did not say whether admission of this evidence was error because in the court’s view admission of this evidence did not significantly affect the verdict.

The state had charged Mr. Benton with first degree domestic abuse murder, which requires proof of a “past pattern” of domestic abuse.  On his motion, the trial court bifurcated that element of first degree domestic abuse murder from the other elements.  Despite the bifurcation, the trial court admitted relationship evidence during both phases of the trial.  Justice Anderson didn’t seem to think this mattered, even though the upshot was to vitiate the bifurcation; the whole point of the bifurcation was to keep relationship evidence out of play during the jury’s determination of guilt/innocence of the actual homicide.  The Justice avoids this problem by eschewing deciding whether admission of the relationship evidence – regardless of when it came in – was an error at all.