Jeffrey Dee Steadman v. State of Texas

Opinion filed August 26, 2010

                                                                       In The

  Eleventh Court of Appeals

                                                                   __________

                                                         No. 11-08-00183-CR

                                                    __________

                            JEFFREY DEE STEADMAN, Appellant

                                                             V.

                                      STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                                   On Appeal from the 350th District Court

                                                            Taylor County, Texas

                                                     Trial Court Cause No. 8299D

O N   M O T I O N   F O R   R E H E A R I N G

In his motion for rehearing, in connection with his fourth issue, appellant has called our attention to the fact that, in our original opinion, we did not cite to the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Presley v. Georgia, 130 S. Ct. 721 (2010).  He is correct; we did not.  In Presley, the Court settled the question of whether the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial extends to jury voir dire proceedings.  It does, and in our original opinion, we treated it in that manner.  The Presley Court also held that the record in that case was not sufficient to show that the Waller test was satisfied.  Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39 (1984).  However, we remain convinced that, under Waller, the trial court did not violate appellant’s right to a public trial either under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or Article I, section 13 of the Texas Constitution.

In his original briefing, appellant referred to the objection lodged at trial that the exclusion of the family members from the voir dire phase of the trial “violates our constitutional right to an open and fair jury under the U.S. Constitution and the state constitution.”  He also refers to his objection that the district attorney’s investigator was sitting where the family members could have been sitting and that his objection was “based upon the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the Texas State Constitution.”  He also makes record references to photographs of the courtroom.  Assuming error, appellant then argued the harmful nature of it.  With the exception of appellant’s argument regarding harm analysis, which we did not need to reach, and matters raised for the first time in appellant’s motion for rehearing, we have addressed all of appellant’s other claims in our original opinion. 

Appellant’s motion for rehearing is denied.

                                                                                    JIM R. WRIGHT

                                                                                    CHIEF JUSTICE

August 26, 2010

Publish.  See Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

Panel consists of:  Wright, C.J.,

McCall, J., and Strange, J.