Waller v. Georgia

A unanimous Court reversed the ruling of the lower court. Justice Powell, who delivered the opinion, first identified a series of tests for justifying closure of a suppression hearing. The tests, derived from the Sixth Amendment and the Court's Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of California ruling earlier in the 1984 term, included the following:

the party seeking to close the hearing must advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced; the closure must be no broader than necessary to protect that interest; the trial court must consider reasonable alternatives to closing the hearing; and it must make findings adequate to support the cause.

Press-Enterprise, of course, addressed First Amendment, not Sixth Amendment concerns, and Powell noted this fact. "Nevertheless," he wrote, "there can be little doubt that the explicit Sixth Amendment right of the accused is no less protective of a public trial than the implicit First Amendment right of the press and public." In essence, Justice Powell noted, a public trial keeps everyone honest: it helps to ensure that judge and prosecutor undertake their duties as prescribed by law, it encourages witnesses to come forward, and it discourages the latter from perjury--presumably because it is easier to advance a falsehood in front of a small group of people than a large one. "These aims and interests," Powell wrote, "are no less pressing in a hearing to suppress wrongfully seized evidence."

Addressing the question of whether Georgia had met these criteria, the Court found that it had not. The state had not been specific enough in its proffer with regard to

whose privacy interests might be infringed if the hearing were open to the public, what portions of the wiretap tapes might infringe those interests, and what portion of the evidence consisted of the tapes.

Due to the state's failure to answer those specifics, the findings of the trial court were "broad and general," and did not support the move to close the entire hearing. Clearly, as Justice Powell noted, "the closure was far more extensive than necessary," given the fact that "The tapes lasted only 2 1/2 hours of the seven-day hearing, and few of them mentioned or involved parties not then before the court." Furthermore, the court had not considered alternatives to closure.

Thus the Court reversed the lower court's judgment, and the only remaining issue to be addressed was where to go from there with regard to the case at hand. The petitioners had asked for a new trial on the merits, but the Court did not think this necessary. "If, after a new suppression hearing, essentially the same evidence is suppressed," Powell wrote, "a new trial presumably would be a windfall for the defendant, and not in the public interest." Unless "a new, public suppression hearing results in the suppression of material evidence not suppressed at the first trial," the Court concluded, "or in some other material change in the positions of parties," a new trial did not need to be held.