Colorado’s second-highest court decided on Thursday that the presence of a group of schoolchildren on the first day of a child sexual exploitation trial did not violate an Arapahoe County defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

Prosecutors charged Jerry Lee Stinnett with two counts related to the possession of sexually abusive material involving children. Before jury selection began, Stinnett’s attorney called attention to the “large contingency of school-aged children” in the gallery, numbering around a dozen.

While the attorney acknowledged that the courtroom was public, “this case involves an allegation that impacts and affects children.” He wondered whether the presence of children “was happenstance or whether this was contrived. Whether the teacher or the school was given notice. Whether this is a theatrical endeavor on the part of the prosecution.”

He concluded by arguing that, given the nature of the case, the presence of children “will impact and affect the jurors.”

The defense cited a 2014 decision from a Florida appellate court, which reversed a defendant’s molestation convictions based on the presence of “burly” men wearing “Bikers Against Child Abuse” jackets in the audience. The appeals court’s majority concluded the bikers improperly “sought to send an implied message to the jury that (the defendant) should be found guilty.”

The prosecutor denied knowing in advance about the field trip, adding that he had spoken to the teacher, who was comfortable given the subject matter of the case.

District Court Judge Joseph R. Whitfield Jr. said he knew about the school group, and noted that the children would not be in the courtroom “for much longer than the morning and probably part of the afternoon. So, they won’t be hearing much about your evidence.”

He declined to eject the children from the courtroom, finding their presence did not harm Stinnett.

In comparison to the Florida case, “these children are all wearing their own individual clothes. They didn’t come here as a band or a team wearing clothing that speaks to the rights of young people or children or certainly nothing along the lines of topics that we have in this case,” Whitfield said.

Following his conviction, Stinnett argued that the children’s presence during jury selection potentially influenced jurors.

“The jury was essentially seated next to the types of victims alleged in the charged conduct,” wrote attorney Elizabeth A. McClintock.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s instruction in a 1986 case that judges, when looking at courtroom circumstances, must determine whether the scenario “was so inherently prejudicial as to pose an unacceptable threat to defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

The children’s “quiet presence alone was not so inherently prejudicial that it could not be overcome through jury instructions to consider only the evidence presented and to afford Stinnett the presumption of innocence,” wrote Senior Assistant Attorney General Brittany Limes Zehner.

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel disagreed with Stinnett in an Aug. 20 opinion, noting he “does not have a constitutional right to close his trial from the public.”

“We are not convinced that Stinnett was inherently prejudiced by the trial court’s decision to allow the children to remain in the courtroom,” wrote retired Supreme Court Justice Alex J. Martinez, who sat on the panel as a semi-retired senior judge. “The presence of children in the courtroom did not necessarily imply that Stinnett should be found guilty of the charges against him. Rather, different people could draw different inferences, or none at all, from the presence of schoolchildren. It is not clear why any of the possible inferences would speak to Stinnett’s guilt or innocence or otherwise interfere with his right to a fair trial.”

The case is People v. Stinnett.