X. Public Trial Implications for Cooperating Defendants

• Library: The Rights of the Accused under the Sixth Amendment (ABA) (2016 Ed.)

X. Public Trial Implications for Cooperating Defendants

The public trial right confers no right to a private trial.⁹⁰ Yet at times the defendant has a strong interest in avoiding public proceedings, such as where the defendant seeks a benefit from cooperating with the government and resolves the case by a plea agreement. The government and the public's interest in effective law enforcement often benefit from such cooperation.⁹¹ It is true that courts may agree to the sealing of cooperating plea agreements to protect the defendant and the defendant's family from potential reprisals arising from their cooperation. If all defendants plead guilty, such plea agreements may never be unsealed at any trial. Nevertheless, some judges are troubled by withholding from the community the basis for their sentencing decisions, and there is authority recognizing a qualified right of access to plea agreements and change of plea hearings.⁹² On the one hand, a good argument can be made that the four interests served by public trials apply equally to sentencing decisions and that the public has an interest in and a right to know how the prosecutor, the defendant, and the accepting court have agreed to resolve the case. On the other hand, there is also little doubt that the threat of recriminations against the cooperating defendant is real, whether on the prison yard or in the community.⁹³

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Notes:

^[90] . See Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 35 (1965) ("[A]though a defendant can, under certain circumstances, waive his constitutional right to a public...