United States v. Gupta’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 10 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““may give way in certain cases to other rights or interests, such as the defendant’s right to a fair trial or the government’s interest in inhibiting disclosure of sensitive information. Such circumstances will be rare, however, and the balance of interests must be struck with special care.” Waller, 467 U.S. at 45 , 104 S.Ct. 2210 . To overcome the guarantee’s “presumption of openness,” Press-Enter. Co. v.[]Super. Ct. of Cal., 464 U.S. 501 , 510, 104 S.Ct. 819 , 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted), trial courts must—“before excluding the public from any stage of a criminal trial,” Presley, 130 S.Ct. at 724 (emphasis added)—satisfy themselves that the following four criteria have been met: (1) “the party seeking to close the [proceeding] must advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced”; (2) “the closure must be no broader than necessary to protect that interest”; (3) “the trial court must consider reasonable alternatives to closing the proceeding”; and (4) the trial court “must make findings adequate to support the closure,” Waller, 467 U.S. at 48 , 104 S.Ct. 2210 ; accord Gibbons[ v. Savage], 555 F.3d [112,] 116 [(2d Cir.2009) ]; Ayala v. Speckard, 131 F.3d 62 , 69 (2d Cir.1997) (in banc). In other words, if a court intends to exclude the public from a criminal proceeding, it must first analyze the Waller factors and make specific findings with regard to those factors. If a trial court fails to adhere to this procedure, any intentional”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. United States v. Gomez

2. “This appeal presents the narrow question of whether the district court’s intentional closure of the courtroom during voir dire violated Defendant — Appellant Raghubir K. Guptajs right to. a public trial. In Waller v. Georgia, ... the Supreme Court held that, consistent with the Sixth Amendment, a trial court may exclude the public from the courtroom only upon satisfaction of a four-factor test.... Because the lower court here did not analyze the Waller factors prior to closing the courtroom, the closure was unjustified. In prior decisions of this Court, we have suggested that an unjustified closure, under certain and limited circumstances, may not require reversal of the defendant’s conviction. See, e.g., Gibbons v. Savage .... Whatever the outer boundaries of this doctrine may be, however, they do not encompass the present case.... As should be clear from the above, the importance of the public trial right dictates that, before closing a courtroom to the public, a trial court, must inform the parties of its intentions and make explicit Waller findings. Failure to comply with this procedure will, in nearly all cases, invite reversal.....Here, the district court’s intentional, unjustified exclusion of the public for the entirety 'of voir dire was neither brief nor trivial, and thus violated Gupta’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. We therefore-VACATE his conviction and REMAND for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 912 F. Supp. 2d 279 - Constant v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

3. “In other words, if a court intends to exclude the public from a criminal proceeding, it must first analyze the Waller factors and make specific findings with regard to those factors. If a trial court fails to adhere to this procedure, any intentional closure is unjustified and will, in all but the rarest of cases, require reversal.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. STATE OF MISSOURI v. JOHNNY R. DAVIS, JR.