Cumbee v. Commonwealth

Indicted for committing fornication with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Bobby Joe Cumbee was found guilty by a jury and sentenced in accordance with the verdict to confinement in the penitentiary for a term of five years. The principal issue on appeal is whether defendant’s constitutional right to a public trial was abridged.

At the beginning of the trial and before the first witness, the victim, had begun to testify, the prosecutor stated:

Your Honor, I moved to exclude the witnesses and I now ask that the spectators be removed from the courtroom due to the victim being a juvenile and this…