No Error In Partial Courtroom Closure, but Rehaif Error Requires Vacation

US v. Barronette: Barronette (and several codefendants) were part of an organization that “distributed drugs and engaged in countless acts of violence using firearms” in West Baltimore, for which they were charged with offenses including conspiracy to commit racketeering, murder, a drug distribution conspiracy, substantive drug distribution counts, and several firearm offenses, including being a felon in possession of a firearm. At trial, the district court limited the number of spectators in the courtroom (sending the rest to an overflow room) do to “extremely serious security concerns” including “fights in the gallery, knives being found in the gallery . . . the fact that government witnesses in the case had been murdered, and an alleged request from Barronette while imprisonment for people to pack the courtroom when government witnesses were testifying.” The defendants were convicted on all charges and sentenced to lengthy terms imprisonment, including life.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed most of the convictions, rejecting numerous arguments raised by various defendants. Two issues stand out. First, all the defendants argued that their right to a public trial had been violated by the restriction on spectators in the courtroom. The court disagreed, noting that “the courtroom was never completely closed to the public” and that the “district court advanced overriding interests of maintaining order and preventing witness intimidation.” The restriction was properly tailored to serve those needs and the district court had considered reasonable alternatives. Second, two defendants, Wilson and Pulley, argued that their felon-in-possession convictions had to be vacated in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rehaif. The court agreed with Pulley, but not Wilson. The difference between the two was that Pulley’s prior convictions were for “state-law misdemeanors” that, nonetheless, fit within the federal definition of “felony” for this offense. In light of the sentences he had been given, “there is a lack of record evidence that Pulley knew that he was convicted of a state crime for which the punishment was for more than two years, especially when his crimes were labelled as misdemeanors.” The court found error, that the error was plain and prejudicial, and ordered Pulley’s conviction vacated. For Wilson, however, the court denied relief because, in comparison to Pulley, he “had been convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon, which is a felony under Maryland law” and therefore the “presumption that he would ordinarily know he was a felon applies.”