Jackson v. Denno hearing, conducted after jury empanelment, may not be closed to public over defense objection
How later courts described this case
- Jackson v. Denno hearing, conducted after jury empanelment, may not be closed to public over defense objection
- requiring proof of prejudice would force accused “to prove what the disregard of his constitutional right has made it impossible for him to learn”
- writ of habeas granted because exclusion of public did not meet “standard of strict and inescapable necessity” where jury had retired from courtroom for hearing on suppression of evidence and only purpose of exclusion was to protect the defendant
- “a requirement that prejudice be shown would ‘in most cases deprive [the defendant] of the [public-trial] guarantee, for it would be difficult to envisage a case in which he would have evidence available of specific injury’ ”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ALDISERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I join in the dissenting opinion cogently expressed by Judge Kalodner. I offer only the additional observation that whatever be the form of the Jackson v. Denno hearing in other jurisdictions, the Pennsylvania schema contains built-in safeguards which guarantee to the defendant a public hearing where the subject matter of the hearing may be used against him. The same guarantee does not extend to the prosecution, but this should cause us no concern. It is the commandment of the Sixth Amendment that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a * * * public trial.”
Under the Pennsylvania practice — followed in the case at bar — the only nonpublic aspect of the proceedings is the hearing to determine whether the confession was voluntary as a matter of law. If, at this stage, the court rules that the confession may not be introduced at trial, then the defendant cannot possibly be prejudiced by the quasi-private nature of the hearing. This very adjudication operates as a resolution of the voluntariness issue in his favor.
Conversely, if a contrary decision is reached, the Pennsylvania practice commands that the voluntariness vel non of the confession be submitted for factual determination by the jury from evidence presented in the open environment of a public trial. Thus, the weighty policy considerations, discussed by the majority, which recommend “the searchlight of a trial open to the public,” are recognized and satisfied by the Pennsylvania procedures.
We do not have before us an evaluation of the practice followed in those jurisdictions where the judge alone, in the confines of the Jackson v. Denno hearing, makes a final determination that the confession is voluntary and *616 therefore admissible. In such a case, it could be argued convincingly that a public forum had been denied.
In this case, the preliminary hearing was conducted in the quasi-private setting purposely designed to protect the defendant’s constitutional rights and to accord him the maximum assurance that the fact finder at his trial on the merits would receive as evidence only that which was legally competent. But the subject matter adduced at the hearing reached the fact finder only in an open courtroom at which the public was not excluded. Under these circumstances the appellant should not be heard to complain that he was denied a public trial.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
Chief Judge HASTIE joins in this opinion.