Monday, April 20, 2015

Right to Be Present

I am working on a brief where the legal issue is the right of a party to be present for the entire trial.  Part of due process and a right of confrontation requires that a party be allowed to be present.  Obviously, a party can act in a way in the courtroom to authorize his or her exclusion.  However, merely because a witness may be uncomfortable or even traumatized is not a sufficient basis to exclude a party.  The comments to Rule 615 of the Rules of Evidence seem to indicate this.  This issues does not seem to have been expressly raised in a Mississippi case but the principal seems to be present in a number of cases. 

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