Is a criminal defendant entitled to a personal waiver of his right to be present during a criminal trial?

For example, as a matter of state and federal constitutional law, a criminal defendant has a fundamental right to be physically present during all parts of a trial in which the defendant faces felony criminal charges. (Kentucky v. Stincer (1987) 482 U.S. 730, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 ; People v. Concepcion (2008) 45 Cal.4th 77, 81, 84 Cal.Rptr.3d 418, 193 P.3d 1172.) California, by statute, has long required a trial court to obtain a written waiver in open court from the defendant whenever the defendant is not

[354 P.3d 294]

present during felony trial proceedings. ( 977, subd. (b)(2) [setting out the specific form that a personal waiver by a defendant must take].) Nonetheless, in cases in which the defendant is represented by counsel, California decisions have repeatedly and uniformly held that even if the defendant has not been personally advised by the court of his or her right to be present and even when the trial court has erred in failing to obtain the statutorily required personal waiver of that right from the defendant, the error is purely statutory and does not itself constitute a miscarriage of justice. Instead, the trial court error is subject to the ordinary harmless error standard mandated by the California Constitution. (People v. Moon (2005) 37 Cal.4th 1, 2021, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d 894, 117 P.3d 591 [the lack of a written

[191 Cal.Rptr.3d 489]