When will a defendant waive his right to be personally present at trial?

As recounted above, defendant frequently disrupted the trial proceedings. As a result, he was removed on a number of occasions from the courtroom. At other times he requested or demanded to absent himself from the courtroom. He claims now that his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses, his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment and his right to be personally present with counsel "in a criminal cause" under article I, section 15, of the California Constitution have all been violated thereby. As we have concluded, " 'as a matter of both federal and state constitutional law, ... a capital defendant may validly waive presence at critical stages of the trial.' " (People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1210, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254.) Moreover, a defendant may waive his right to be present at his trial by being disruptive at the trial, and appellate courts must give considerable deference to the trial court's judgment as to when disruption has occurred or may reasonably be anticipated. (See Illinois v. Allen (1970) 420 U.S. 162, 182, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103; People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1211, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254.) We find no constitutional error arising from defendant's removal or absence at various points during the trial.

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Defendant also contends that his statutory rights were violated under section 977, subdivision (b), which provides in pertinent part that in felony cases "the accused shall be present at the arraignment, at the time of plea, during the preliminary hearing, during those portions of the trial when evidence is taken before the trier of fact, and at the time of the imposition of sentence. The accused shall be personally present at all other proceedings unless he shall, with leave of court, execute in open court, a written waiver...." Furthermore, section 1043, subdivision (a), recites in part that "[e]xcept as otherwise provided in this section, the defendant in a felony case shall be personally present at the trial." "The cases which have interpreted the foregoing sections uniformly have held that the accused is not entitled to be personally present either in chambers or at bench discussions which occur outside of the jury's presence on questions of law or other matters in which defendant's presence does not bear a 'reasonably substantial relation to the fullness of his opportunity to defend against the charge.' " (People v. Jackson (1980) 28 Cal.3d 264, 309, 168 Cal.Rptr. 603, 618 P.2d 149.)