United States v. Matthew Mortimer

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that a trial’s “structure normally stands if the parties consent to excuse the presence of a judge.”
• holding structural error occurred where a prosecutor tried to make an objection, but the judge had disappeared from the bench
• finding structural defect in judge's unexplained absence from the courtroom during defense counsel's closing argument
• trial judge gave “no notice to counsel or the jury that he was about to depart. He was simply gone.”
• prosecutor objected during defense’s summation but withdrew objection upon observing that judge was not in the courtroom
• “[W]e cannot... anticipate every circumstance under which the judge’s absence may destroy the structure.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).