Sweeney v. United States, No. 13-1862 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, convicted of charges related to the unauthorized interception of cable service and illegal currency structuring for which he is serving 70 months imprisonment, argued that his Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when his attorney left the courtroom, with the permission of the district court, to go to the bathroom during the government's direct examination of a co-conspirator. The parties agreed that petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated due to counsel's absence but disagree as to the degree of that error and whether harmless-error analysis can apply in light of Cronic v. United States. The court concluded that, although counsel's absence occurred at a "critical stage," the brevity of the absence - 3 minutes - distinguishes this case from the "complete denial of counsel" discussed in Cronic. The court agreed with the district court's reliance on Arizona v. Fulminante in concluding that counsel's brief absence constituted trial error and not a structured defect. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's ruling that the constitutional violation in this case was subject to harmless-error analysis.
Court Description: Prisoner case - habeas. For the details of the underlying criminal case, see U.S. v. Sweeney, 611 F.3d 459 (8th Cir. 2010). The district court did not err when it determined that while Sweeney's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when his attorney briefly left the courtroom to go the bathroom during the direct examination of a co-conspirator who was cooperating with the government, counsel's brief absence constituted trial error and was not a structural defect; because the certificate of appealability in the case was limited to the question of whether harmless-error analysis applied, the court would not address the district court's conclusion that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
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