generally a criminal defendant cannot be tried in a secret court proceeding, such as the Star Chamber in England in the sixteenth century. The rationale is that a public trial makes it less likely that a gross injustice will be perpetrated. The issue surfaces when a judge closes a courtroom and denies the press or others access to the courtroom.
Sometimes criminal defendants wish to deny the press access to their cases. Other times both parties agree that the case should be tried in private. The Sixth Amendment requires that the judge make specific findings as to why a case should be closed before engaging in such drastic measures. In Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia (1980), the U.S. Supreme Court explained the importance of conducting trials in open view: “People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing. When a criminal trial is conducted in the open, there is at least an opportunity both for understanding the system in general and its workings in a particular case.”
What is an impartial jury?
The Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury means that a defendant must have a jury that is chosen in a process that represents a fair cross-section of the community. The U.S. Supreme Court explained in Taylor v. Louisiana (1975; see LegalSpeak, p. 70) that “selection of a petit [trial] jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.”
What is the Confrontation Clause?
The Confrontation Clause provides that criminal defendants—through their attorneys—have the chance to confront their accusers face-to-face in the courtroom. It means that defense counsel can cross-examine those who make charges and give unfavorable testimony about defendants. In the words of the Supreme Court, the Confrontation Clause “aims to produce fairness by ensuring the reliability of testimony.”
For example, police in the state of Washington charged Michael Crawford with assault and attempted murder after he stabbed a man who earlier had attempted to rape his wife. The wife later gave a tape-recorded statement to the police about the incident. However, at trial Crawford’s wife refused to testify under a spousal exemption under state law that provides that spouses don’t have to give evidence or testify against each other. The prosecution then tried to introduce the tape-recorded statement. Crawford countered that introducing that tape-recorded statement violated the Confrontation Clause, as he would not have an opportunity to cross-examine his wife.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed in Crawford v. Washington (2004; see LegalSpeak, p. 71), reasoning that the lower court erred in allowing the wife’s testimonial statement to be introduced when the husband did not have a chance at cross-examination.
LegalSpeak: Taylor v. Louisiana (1975)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled:
We accept the fair-cross-section requirement as fundamental to the jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and are convinced that the requirement has solid foundation. The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power—to make available the common-sense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps overconditioned or biased response of a judge. This prophylactic vehicle is not provided if the jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool. Community participation in the administration of the criminal law, moreover, is not only consistent with our democratic heritage but is also critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Restricting jury service to only special groups or excluding identifiable segments playing major roles in the community cannot be squared with the constitutional concept of jury trial….
We are also persuaded that the fair-cross-section requirement is violated by the systematic exclusion of women, who in the judicial district involved here amounted to 53% of the citizens eligible for jury service. This conclusion necessarily entails the judgment that women are sufficiently numerous and distinct from men and that if they are systematically eliminated from jury panels, the Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement cannot be satisfied.
What is the importance of compulsory process?
Compulsory process guarantees that a criminal defendant has the right “to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” Without compulsory process, defense attorneys could not produce many witnesses, as many people would rather not get involved in the court process.
What does assistance of counsel mean?
This last freedom mentioned in the Sixth Amendment ensures that those defendants facing prison time have a lawyer to assist them in their defense. The U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) recognized that attorneys in criminal cases are “necessities, not luxuries.”
LegalSpeak: Crawford v. Washington (2004)
First, the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused. It was these practices that the Crown deployed in notorious treason cases like Raleigh’s; that the Marian statutes invited; that English law’s assertion of a right to confrontation was meant to prohibit; and that the founding-era rhetoric decried. The Sixth Amendment must be interpreted with this focus in mind.
Accordingly, we once again reject the view that the Confrontation Clause applies of its own force only to in-court testimony, and that its application to out-of-court statements introduced at trial depends upon the law of Evidence for the time being.
The Court explained:
Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public’s interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can [542 U.S. 418] get to prepare and present their defenses. That government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.
Who was the defendant in Gideon v. Wainwright?
The defendant was Clarence Earl Gideon, who was charged with stealing money from a Florida pool hall. A jury convicted him of theft and a judge sentenced him to five years in jail. Gideon has asked for a lawyer to represent him, but the state of Florida at that time did not provide attorneys to those defendants who could not afford them. Gideon on his own wrote a five-page petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking them to hear his case. The U.S. Supreme Court appointed well-known D.C. lawyer Abe Fort-as to represent Gideon at the Court.
How does the court determine if a defendant received effective assistance of counsel?
The Sixth Amendment provides as a basic freedom
