Stackhouse v. People

JUSTICE MÁRQUEZ,

dissenting.

¶ 18 Today, the majority concludes that a defendant “affirmatively waives” his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, not by intentionally relinquishing the right or knowingly abandoning it, but merely through his counsel’s failure to raise a contemporaneous objection to a courtroom closure. Maj. op. ¶¶ 1, 9, 17. Because I cannot agree that a defendant’s silence necessarily strips him of the fundamental constitutional right to a public trial, I write separately and explain why, under United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), and…