Washington v. Shearer (Majority)
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In the unrelated trials of Henry Grisby III and Gregory Shearer, the trial judges questioned a juror in private without making a finding that specific circumstances warranted closing the questioning to the public. This was a violation of both Grisby's and Shearer's right to a public trial. The State asks the Washington Supreme Court to overrule two key holdings from two 2012 cases on public trial rights. First, the State asked that we overrule the holding that a defendant's failure to object to a closure at trial does not constitute a waiver of his or her public trial rights. Second, the State asked the Court to overrule the holding that public trial rights violations are structural error and thus prejudice is presumed when a public trial rights violation is shown. The Court overruled its precedent only when it has been shown to be incorrect and harmful, and in this case, the State did not make such a showing. Therefore, the Court applied the holdings from those 2012 cases here and found that the public trial rights of both Shearer and Grisby were violated when a portion of juror questioning was closed to the public without a finding that specific circumstances warranted the closure.
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