Opinion
No. 03 Crim. 0316 (LAK).
July 6, 2005
ORDER
Defendant requests that he appear at his sentencing hearing by video conference from his current place of incarceration at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina. He argues that he "would be at some increased risk of recurrence of his depressive symptoms" if he were housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He claims also that his mental health could be jeopardized further if he were held there pending designation of a place of incarceration by the Bureau of Prisons, which he contends could take four to six weeks.
There is an important interest in requiring a defendant convicted of a serious crime, as is the case here, to face the public and the Court in person. Such a confrontation between the criminal and the sentencing judge, as the representative of the community, in the presence of members of the public and the press serves retributive, deterrent, and occasionally rehabilitative purposes that long have animated our criminal law. That public interest decisively outweighs a convicted defendant's desire to minimize discomfort, anxiety and shame by appearing before video equipment in a private place rather than in person in a public courtroom. While some accommodation might be warranted if serious medical or psychological harm would result from a courtroom proceeding, the materials submitted by defendant do not remotely suggest that this is likely here. Moreover, the government has represented that the defendant could be placed in a different institution while present in this area for sentencing and that the Bureau of Prisons would be likely to designate a place of incarceration within days of the imposition of sentence.
Accordingly, the defendant's request is denied.
SO ORDERED.