People v. Joseph

*498OPINION OF THE COURT

Chief Judge Cooke.

The right to a public trial does not preclude a Presiding Judge from excluding all spectators, including a defendant’s family and friends, during a particular witness’s testimony when the circumstances warrant such action to foster the truth-discovery process.

Defendant was convicted of robbery in the first degree and sodomy in the first degree. The charges arose out of a 1977 incident in which defendant and another man accosted and robbed a young couple, and sodomized the woman, who was 19 years old at the time.

At the 1979 trial, after opening statements,…