Out of the shadows

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Constitution’s guarantee of a public trial means judges may not close their courtrooms without cause during jury selection.

In an unsigned 7-2 opinion, the court set aside the cocaine trafficking conviction of a Georgia man who challenged the trial judge’s decision to prohibit the public from attending proceedings in which lawyers questioned prospective jurors.

The Sixth Amendment gives criminal defendants the right to insist on a public trial, and that includes jury selection, the court ruled. “Trial courts are obligated to take every reasonable measure to accommodate public attendance at criminal trials,” the court said.

The Georgia defendant, Eric Presley, objected to the judge’s decision to prevent his uncle from watching jury selection. The high court said some specific reason must be cited for keeping the public out, such as safety concerns or the threat of improper communications with jurors.

It’s to be hoped lower courts will properly interpret that to mean real, rare, specific and demonstrable threats of violence or corruption, not just a prescription for some pro forma, rhetorical rigmarole.

The court’s ruling here is obviously correct — a virtual no-brainer. Of course the Constitution guarantees defendants the right to a public trial (a basic safeguard against Star Chambers and kangaroo justice), and of course jury selection is an important — perhaps the most important — part of that public trial.

For if the court could confront the defendant with a jury panel pre-selected in some manner to which neither the defendant nor the public were privy, the chances for mischief would be multiplied; the outcome of all to follow could easily by rendered a fait accompli.

Errors or manipulation in jury selection can hardly be noted and challenged if the process is secret. In fact, it appears all nine justices may have been making that point last week, because the two dissenters — Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia — merely held that the stakes in this case were important enough to warrant argument before the justices, instead of the court’s summary reversal.