Whether the Sixth Amendment's public trial guarantee, within the review apparatus imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), requires a trial court to conduct the four-part test from Waller v. Georgia before imposing a partial courtroom closure in a criminal trial

QUESTION PRESENTED The question presented by this petition is whether the Sixth Amendment’s public trial guarantee, within the review apparatus imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), requires a trial court to conduct the four-part test from Waller v. Georgia before imposing a partial courtroom closure in a criminal trial. Some circuit courts of appeals, and some of the States, have fashioned rules, none of which have been sanctioned by a holding of this Court, to allow for certain public trial closures that, because they are deemed “partial” or are otherwise not “total,” evade review under Waller v. Georgia and Presley v. Georgia. In Petitioner Tracy Zornes’s murder trial, the trial court judge removed Zornes’s girlfriend from the courtroom during juror voir dire without first conducting a Wailer analysis. In holding that this partial closure did not violate Zornes’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the removal by the district court of Zornes’s girlfriend during voir dire was justified because she was a potential witness, and that no Waller inquiry was required. The question presented by this case strikes at the very holdings of this Court in Waller v. Georgia and Presley v. Georgia. In the former, this Court articulated a four-factor test that “any closure...must meet” in order to withstand constitutional scrutiny. 467 U.S. 39 at 47-48 (1984) (emphasis supplied). In the latter, this Court reiterated the point that “Waller provided standards for courts to apply before 2 excluding the public from any stage of a criminal trial.” 558 U.S. 209 at 213 (2010) (emphasis supplied). Against this backdrop, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Minnesota Supreme Court’s opinion is neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law because of its view that neither Wailer nor Presley apply to “partial” courtroom closures. This Court has not previously distinguished between “partial” and “total” closures. 3