Supreme Court Decides on Unusual Practices in Georgia Trial Courts

On Tuesday the unusual practices in Georgia trial courts, including disrespectful gifts to court personnel and the ejection of a defendant’s uncle, were the subjects of a pair of unsigned Supreme Court decisions.

In one of the Georgia cases, Presley v. Georgia, the Supreme Court came to a conclusion on two open issues concerning closed courtrooms.

The trial judge had kicked out an uncle of the defendant during jury selection and said her courtroom was too small to accommodate both potential jurors and the public. The defendant, Eric Presley, who had been convicted of trafficking in cocaine, appealed the conviction and claimed his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial had been violated.

In 1984, the Supreme Court had ruled that the press and the public have a First Amendment right of access to jury selection. Tuesday the court extended that right to criminal defendants under the Sixth Amendment for Presley’s case. “There is no legitimate reason, at least in the context of jury selection proceedings, to give one who asserts a First Amendment privilege greater rights to insist on public proceedings than the accused has,” said the opinion.

The Supreme Court also concluded that a defendant seeking to open a courtroom does not need to present alternatives to the trial judge. Whether trial judges are given alternatives or not, the majority opinion said, they “are obligated to take every reasonable measure to accommodate public attendance at criminal trials.”

Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia disagreed, saying the majority should not have decided the two questions in summary fashion without a full briefing and argument.

The second Georgia case, Wellons v. Hall, ordered the federal appeals court in Atlanta to reconsider its decision that there was nothing legally wrong with two gifts that had been given to court personnel by the jurors in a capital trial. The two gifts were a chocolate penis for the trial judge and chocolate breast for the bailiff.

“Judicial proceedings conducted for the purpose of deciding whether a defendant shall be put to death must be conducted with dignity and respect,” the unsigned majority opinion said.

The decision instructed the appeals court to reconsider the case in light of Cone v. Bell, a Supreme Court decision from last April clarifying how federal courts may take account of state court rulings in habeas corpus cases. Four justices dissented. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, said that the majority had treated the appeals court with disrespect, “as though we were schoolmasters grading their homework,” and that “an appropriately self-respecting response” from the appeals court “would be summary reissuance of the same opinion.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. also disagreed saying the gifts were “strange and tasteless” as well as “facially troubling,” Justice Alito added that the Supreme Court should either have agreed to hear the case or denied review, but sending the case back for reconsideration was inappropriate.