State v. Tabor, 2017 Ohio 8656

Appellant Jarron Tabor pleaded guilty to first-degree-felony possession of cocaine after the state dismissed a major-drug-offender specification; sentencing resulted in nine years’ imprisonment and court costs.
Court-issued hearing notices (signed by the assignment commissioner) advised that children were not to be brought into the courthouse; Tabor did not object at plea or sentencing.
On appeal Tabor raised three assignments: (1) exclusion of children from his plea and sentencing hearings violated his Sixth Amendment/right to a public trial; (2) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to that exclusion; and (3) the court imposed unauthorized mileage court costs for subpoena service.
The trial court made no on-the-record findings justifying any courtroom closure and the record contains no evidence that specific persons (including Tabor’s children) attempted to attend and were denied entry.
The appellate court assumed, for argument’s sake, that the notice excluding children could constitute a courtroom closure and evaluated forfeiture/plain-error, ineffective-assistance (Strickland) and court-costs forfeiture doctrines.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Tabor)	Held
Whether excluding children via court notice violated the right to a public trial	Notices regulate decorum, not a judicial closure; no order from judge, so no public-trial violation	Excluding children closed the courtroom and violated the public-trial guarantee; structural error requiring reversal	Court assumed arguendo closure but held Tabor forfeited the claim by not objecting; on plain-error review he failed to show the closure affected the outcome, so claim overruled
Whether trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the exclusion	Even if counsel erred, Tabor cannot show prejudice (no reasonable probability of different outcome)	Counsel’s failure to object was deficient and deprived Tabor of preservation and a public proceeding	Applying Strickland and Weaver, court presumed deficiency but found no prejudice or fundamental unfairness; ineffective-assistance claim denied
Whether mileage for subpoenas was an unauthorized court cost	Court contends costs were imposed and recorded; appellee did not press plain-error	Tabor argues R.C. prohibits mileage for subpoenas served to local sheriff’s personnel (miles not traveled)	Issue forfeited by failure to object at sentencing; appellant did not brief plain error so court declined sua sponte review and overruled the assignment

Weaver v. Massachusetts, 137 S. Ct. 1899 (2017) (public-trial violations are structural but forfeitable if not timely objected to; ineffective-assistance claims still require Strickland prejudice)
Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39 (1984) (four-part test for courtroom closure: overriding interest, narrowly tailored, no alternatives, on-the-record findings)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-prong standard for ineffective assistance of counsel: deficient performance and prejudice)
State v. Drummond, 111 Ohio St.3d 14 (2006) (Ohio recognition of public-trial protections and limits on courtroom closures)
United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140 (2006) (structural-error discussion distinguishing errors that affect framework of trial)