Conviction thrown out for Iowa man whose trial was closed to public due to COVID-19

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the public has a right to see what happens inside a courtroom.

That's the ruling of the Iowa Supreme Court, which on Thursday overturned a Dubuque man's conviction for raping a 16-year-old girl in 2018. Ronald Brimmer, now 25, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty in a trial where the judge, citing COVID-19 restrictions and technology challenges, did not allow the defendant's family or any other members of the public to observe the proceedings.

Justice Dana Oxley wrote the decision, with only one colleague, Christopher McDonald, fully signing on to her opinion. Two more justices, David May and Matthew McDermott, agreed with most of Oxley's opinion and concurred that a new trial is necessary, while Justice Edward Mansfield, joined by Justices Susan Christensen and Thomas Waterman, dissented.

Dubuque County Attorney CJ May, whose office will have to decide whether to retry Brimmer, said Thursday he was still reviewing the decision and did not have any immediate comment.

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Convicted at a trial closed to the public

According to court filings, Brimmer and co-worker Augustin Bon-Orduno, 35, were both charged with second-degree sexual abuse of the 16-year-old victim, to whom they allegedly provided alcoholic beverages and then, one after the other, sexually assaulted her in the bathroom of Bon-Orduno's house in 2018.

Bon-Orduno pleaded guilty to reduced charges, but Brimmer took the case to trial. It was originally scheduled for March 2020, but as COVID-19 arrived in Iowa, the state paused all jury trials for most of that year and into the next, and it was not until April 2021 that the trial began.

At the time, orders from the Iowa Supreme Court required in-person court proceedings to follow public health guidance on mask wearing and maintaining social distance, among other factors. For Brimmer's trial, that meant jurors were spaced out in the seating usually reserved for the public.

Brimmer's attorney repeatedly objected that there was no seating for the public, but the judge determined there was no place to seat onlookers while keeping them fully segregated from jurors. When the court allowed a victim advocate to watch the trial from the vacant jury box, Brimmer asked that his mother also be allowed to sit there, too, but his request was denied. And while the Supreme Court orders at the time encouraged use of livestreaming video, the judge told the parties he was not able to operate that technology for the trial.

Were Brimmer's rights violated?

Oxley noted in her opinion that the trial judge was making difficult judgment calls under unprecedented circumstances. Nonetheless, she wrote, denying all public access to the trial violated Brimmer's right to a "speedy and public trial" under state and federal constitutions.

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Courts are allowed to restrict public access to protect some "overriding interest." Oxley agreed that the pandemic presented such an issue, but that courts are required to ensure those closures are "no broader than necessary." Oxley noted the court had been able to safely seat 17 potential jurors during jury selection, and could have fit at least a few more people once the final jury of 13 was seated.

"The seating options were not ideal and ordinarily would likely not have been allowed," Oxley wrote. "But when the court conceded it could do so and still comply with our physical distancing directives, it had an obligation to do more than slam shut the courtroom door."

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Mansfield, in dissent, wrote that the judge's concerns about spectators intermingled with jurors were reasonable, and argued that Brimmer neither requested video streaming at trial nor argued for it on appeal. Accordingly, he wrote, Brimmer's rights had not been violated, and there was no need to subject the parties to a new trial, especially since all seven justices rejected Brimmer's argument there was insufficient evidence to convict him.

"I see no reason to put someone who was serially raped by two men as a sixteen-year-old through another trial simply to make an academic point about the importance of the public trial right," Mansfield wrote.

"At sentencing, after describing her painful experiences since being raped by Brimmer and Augustin Ben-Orduno, the victim said, 'I am relieved that after all of the money and time that I spent to get through this, that it’s finally over,'" Mansfield added. "Unfortunately, it isn’t."

Ruling unlikely to overturn many cases

Although Thursday's ruling sends Brimmer's case back for a new trial, it's not likely that many other cases will be similarly affected, said Eric Tindal, an Iowa City attorney and chair of criminal defense for the Iowa Association for Justice.

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Many courts had to make difficult decisions in how to resume trials during COVID, Tindal said, but he doesn't believe many went as far as the Dubuque court in completely blocking public access, in person or via livestream. Even if they did, he said, only in cases where the defendant objected at the time are they likely to be able to bring a similar appeal.

"I actually think that number of cases that are going to fit this particular type of fact pattern where there was both a complete closure and an assertion of the right of the public to access, those are going to be fairly small in number," Tindal said.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: COVID closure of courtroom entitles man to new trial, Iowa court rules