Whether the use of a white-noise machine during voir dire, without specific privacy concerns, violates a defendant's constitutional right to a public trial under the First and Sixth Amendments

No question identified. : No. IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BENITO VALDEZ, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. On Application for Extension of Time to File a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals PETITIONER'S APPLICATION TO EXTEND TIME TO FILE A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI To the Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr., as Circuit Justice for the District of Columbia, covering the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Under Supreme Court Rule 13.5, Petitioner Benito Valdez respectfully requests that the time to file a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in this matter be extended by sixty days to August 29, 2025. The judgment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was entered on August 15, 2024. See App. A, infra. Mr. Valdez’s timely petition for rehearing en banc was denied on April 1, 2025. See App. B, infra. Mr. Valdez’s certiorari petition is due to this Court on June 30, 2025. See S. Ct. R. 13.1, 13.3. This extension motion is being filed more than ten days in advance of the due date. See S. Ct. R. 13.5. This Court would have jurisdiction over the judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a). BACKGROUND Over Petitioner’s objection during his trial for murder and other offenses, the trial court followed the common local practice of conducting voir dire of all prospective jurors at the bench with the use of a “husher’—a white-noise machine activated by the presiding judge—to prevent anyone in the audience from hearing the voir dire. On appeal, Petitioner again argued that the use of a husher to prevent the public from hearing voir dire, absent specific privacy or other concerns, violated his constitutional right under the First and Sixth Amendments to a public trial. However, he acknowledged that his claim was foreclosed by a controlling decision of the Court of Appeals in Blades v. United States, 200 A.3d 230 (D.C. 2019), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 165 (2020). In Blades, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals held that, although the purpose of the husher was to ensure jurors’ “privacy” during voir dire, the voir dire was still “public” because there was no “closure or partial closure of the courtroom.” Jd. at 240. The majority held that “use of a husher during the conduct of individual voir dire at the bench, along with access within a reasonable time to transcripts of the individual prospectivejuror examinations, is a reasonable alternative to closure of the courtroom that enables the public to see the court proceedings, including facial expressions and body language of at least some of the participants at the bench, and thus honors the defendant's right to a public trial.” Id. Because the majority held that using the husher to block public hearing of the voir dire did not implicate the public-trial right, it held that the procedure does not require an “overriding interest,” special findings, or the other factors required to permit 2 closed proceedings under Wailer v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 46 (1984). See Blades, 200 A.3d at 239-40. In reaching this result, the court acknowledged that its ruling is directly contrary to the Sixth Circuit’s. See id. at 239 n.6 (citing in In re Memphis Publishing Co., 887 F.2d 646 (6th Cir. 1989)). Judge Beckwith dissented. She found it “impossible to reconcile the majority's view of the husher procedure as somehow exempt from Wailer’s requirements for proposed limitations on a public trial with the Supreme Court’s public trial cases and with the decisions of this and other courts.” Blades, 200 A.3d at 249 (Beckwith, J., dissenting). Judge Beckwith also noted that “a practice that keeps the public from hearing what is going on during jury selection . . . cannot be squared with the values the Supreme Court has said the public trial right serves.” Id. at 252. “Ensuring ‘that judge and prosecutor carry out their duties responsibly,’ ‘encouraging witnesses to come forward,’ and ‘discouraging perjury,’ are best accomplished by people w