Court rejects new trial for NC man convicted after courtroom closing

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals split, 2-1, Monday in rejecting a new trial for a man convicted on federal drug charges after a portion of his North Carolina trial was closed to the public.

Tamarcus Shaquan “Mark B” Ellis was convicted in 2024 of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in methamphetamine in the Greensboro area. Judge Louise Flanagan sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

“He was also allegedly involved in the murder, dismemberment , and burning of a woman who had been working as a confidential informant for the government by purchasing drugs from Ellis and others during the government’s investigation,” according to the majority opinion. Ellis faced a separate murder charge in state court.

Flanagan closed Ellis’ federal trial for “approximately one hour during the four-day trial” while one prosecution witness testified. A federal marshal had informed the judge that at least one person in the gallery had been making clicking noises with his teeth during the witness’ testimony the previous day.

“During Tamarcus Ellis’ four-day criminal trial on charges of drug trafficking, the district court partially closed the courtroom for a portion of one witness’s testimony, believing that the witness was being intimidated by a person or persons in the gallery,” Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote for the majority. “Ellis objected and now contends on appeal that his conviction must be vacated due to a violation of his rights under the Public Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which, he argues, is a structural error requiring a new trial.”

“We conclude that the closure was not trivial, as the government contends, and therefore that the partial closure indeed implicated the Sixth Amendment’s Public Trial Clause,” Niemeyer wrote. “We also agree with Ellis that a violation of the Public Trial Clause is a structural error that would automatically require a new trial.”

“But we conclude that in the circumstances of this case, where the closure was partial as to persons excluded and temporally limited, we apply a more relaxed test than that for a total closure of the courtroom,” the majority opinion continued. “Applying this test, we conclude that the district court properly found a ‘substantial reason’ for the partial closure, that the partial closure was no broader than necessary, and that there were no reasonable alternatives. Accordingly, we affirm.”

The US Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Waller v. Georgia established a test for determining when a courtroom proceeding could be closed completely.

“While the Waller test addresses the total closure of a courtroom — the exclusion of all persons except for the parties, lawyers, witnesses, and court personnel for the entire hearing — a less demanding test applies to partial closures, where not all members of the public are excluded or where an exclusion is temporally limited to a portion of the hearing or both,” Niemeyer wrote. “This reflects the obvious fact that the values protected by a public trial are partially served by the partially open courtroom. But a partial closure, nonetheless, may still undermine the values served by the public trial guarantee, as it is not difficult to imagine a situation in which excluding certain persons or closing a trial temporarily could still result in a compromise of the values of an open courtroom.”

“Under the Waller test as modified for partial closures, a court may partially close a courtroom if (1) the party seeking to close the courtroom advances a substantial reason justifying the closure; (2) the closure is no broader than necessary; (3) reasonable alternatives to the closure were considered by the trial court; and (4) the court made adequate findings to support the closure,” Niemeyer explained.

“At bottom, we conclude that the district court’s partial closure for an hour during this four-day trial was justified under the modified Waller framework for partial courtroom closures,” the majority opinion concluded.

Judge Steven Agee joined Niemeyer’s opinion. Judge Julius Richardson dissented.

“The district court closed its courtroom to the public during the testimony of the government’s cooperating witness,” Richardson wrote. “It found no fact. It never found intimidation likely absent closure. And it never considered a single measure short of closure. Instead, acting on a secondhand report that a single unidentified spectator had clicked his teeth during the cooperator’s earlier testimony, the court barred the public from the rest of the witness’s direct examination and the whole of his cross-examination. The Sixth Amendment’s public-trial guarantee does not permit that shortcut.”

“But does that violation matter?” Richardson asked. “The evidence supporting Tamarcus Ellis’s federal drug-trafficking conviction was overwhelming. And Ellis is a bad man: A state-court jury later convicted him of murdering and dismembering the body of a woman who served as an informant for law enforcement.”

“But neither the strength of the evidence nor Ellis’s character can make this preserved error harmless,” the dissent continued. “The denial of a public trial is structural error. So even a defendant like Ellis receives a new trial when that right is violated. I would vacate his conviction.”

“Court rejects new trial for NC man convicted after courtroom closing” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.