In State v. Brimmer, decided today by the Iowa Supreme Court, the majority (Justices Dana Oxley, joined by Justices Christopher McDonald, Matthew McDermott, and David May) concluded that defendant's public trial rights were violated by the complete closure of his trial, including the exclusion of his family (here, just his mother):
[T]he pandemic is an overriding interest that supports the court's decision to limit the public's access to Brimmer's trial [in April 2021]. But identifying an overriding interest is only the first step to closing a trial to the public. The district court was also required to tailor any closure so that it was "no broader than necessary to protect" the identified interest and to consider—and adopt—any reasonable alternatives to a complete closure….
As trials resumed, courts around the country adopted measures to balance COVID precautions with defendants' rights, and many subsequently faced constitutional challenges to their modified trial proceedings. Some courts reconfigured their courtrooms to make space for at least a limited number of people to attend while maintaining physical distancing requirements, as Brimmer requested here. Others provided alternative means for the public to observe proceedings, such as livestreaming a video or audio feed to another location within the courthouse or over the internet, so that members of the public could view, or in some instances at least listen, to the trial as it was happening. Courts utilized YouTube, local television broadcasts, and Zoom teleconferencing platforms to provide virtual access to the public in real time.
While most courts have upheld these various modifications to a public trial challenge when scrutinized under the Waller v. Georgia (1984) test, virtually all of those cases involved only a partial closure. But here, all members of the public were excluded from in-person participation, and no live video, or even audio, feed of the trial was made available….
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