In Absentia - Under United States Law

Under United States Law

For more than 100 years, courts in the United States have held that, according to the United States Constitution, a criminal defendant's right to appear in person at their trial, as a matter of due process, is protected under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

In 1884, the United States Supreme Court held that

the legislature has deemed it essential to the protection of one whose life or liberty is involved in a prosecution for felony, that he shall be personally present at the trial, that is, at every stage of the trial when his substantial rights may be affected by the proceedings against him. If he be deprived of his life or liberty without being so present, such deprivation would be without that due process of law required by the Constitution. Hopt v. Utah 110 US 574, 28 L Ed 262, 4 S Ct 202 (1884).

A similar holding was announced by the Arizona Supreme Court in 2004 (based on Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure):

A voluntary waiver of the right to be present requires true freedom of choice. A trial court may infer that a defendant's absence from trial is voluntary and constitutes a waiver if a defendant had personal knowledge of the time of the proceeding, the right to be present, and had received a warning that the proceeding would take place in their absence if they failed to appear. The courts indulge every reasonable presumption against the waiver of fundamental constitutional rights. State v. Whitley, 85 P.3d 116 (2004)

Although United States Congress codified this right by approving Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946 and amended the Rule in 1973, the right is not absolute.

Rule 43 provides that a defendant shall be present

• at the arraignment,
• at the time of the plea,
• at every stage of the trial including the impaneling of the jury and the return of the verdict and
• at the imposition of sentence.

However, the following exceptions are included in the Rule:

• the defendant waives his right to be present if he voluntarily leaves the trial after it has commenced,
• if he persists in disruptive conduct after being warned that such conduct will cause him to be removed from the courtroom,
• a corporation need not be present, but may be represented by counsel,
• in prosecutions for misdemeanors, the court may permit arraignment, plea, trial, and imposition of sentence in the defendant's absence with his written consent, and
• the defendant need not be present at a conference or argument upon a question of law or at a reduction of sentence under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Indeed, several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have recognized that a defendant may forfeit the right to be present at trial through disruptive behavior, or through his or her voluntary absence after trial has begun.

In 1993, the Supreme Court revisited Rule 43 in the case of Crosby v. United States. The Court unanimously held, in an opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, that Rule 43 does not permit the trial in absentia of a defendant who is absent at the beginning of trial.

This case requires us to decide whether Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43 permits the trial in absentia of a defendant who absconds prior to trial and is absent at its beginning. We hold that it does not. ...The Rule declares explicitly: "The defendant shall be present . . . at every stage of the trial . . . except as otherwise provided by this rule" (emphasis added). The list of situations in which the trial may proceed without the defendant is marked as exclusive not by the "expression of one" circumstance, but rather by the express use of a limiting phrase. In that respect the language and structure of the Rule could not be more clear."

However, the Crosby Court reiterated an 80-year-old precedent that

Where the offense is not capital and the accused is not in custody, . . . if, after the trial has begun in his presence, he voluntarily absents himself, this does not nullify what has been done or prevent the completion of the trial, but, on the contrary, operates as a waiver of his right to be present and leaves the court free to proceed with the trial in like manner and with like effect as if he were present. Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. at 455 (emphasis added).

Some state laws provide for automatic retrial of fugitives who are arrested after being convicted in absentia.