At the trial of a complaint or indictment for a violation of sections 609.341 to 609.3451 ; 609.3453 ; 609.3458 ; 617.246, subdivision 2 ; or Minnesota Statutes 2004, section 609.109, when a minor under 18 years of age is the person upon, with, or against whom the crime is alleged to have been committed, the judge may exclude the public from the courtroom during the victim's testimony or during all or part of the remainder of the trial upon a showing that closure is necessary to protect a witness or ensure fairness in the trial. The judge shall give the prosecutor, defendant and members of the public the opportunity to object to the closure before a closure order. The judge shall specify the reasons for closure in an order closing all or part of the trial. Upon closure the judge shall only admit persons who have a direct interest in the case.
Minn. Stat. § 631.045
EXCLUDING SPECTATORS FROM COURTROOM.
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case State v. McRae (1992)
Most recently applied in Crawford v. Minnesota (August 2007)
1982 c 558 s 4; 1985 c 265 art 11 s 1; 1986 c 351 s 22; 1998 c 367 art 6 s 14; 2005 c 136 art 4 s 10; 2007 c 13 art 3 s 37; 1Sp2021 c 11 art 4 s 31
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Minnesota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.