1. The district court excluded the public, including family members, from the
courtroom for the entirety of jury selection. Petitioner's counsel failed to object.
Applying Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b), a divided panel pretermitted the question whether
this structural error "affect[ed petitioner's] substantial rights," and held that the
integrity and reputation of the courts did not call for reversal. The question is:

Should this Court's decision in United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1994),

be overruled in part, insofar as it departs from the original meaning of Fed.R.
Crim.P. 52(b) by requiring, to allow reversal as "plain error," that an obvious
structural error have not only affected an appellant's "substantial rights" but
also that it implicate the fairness, integrity or reputation of the courts?

2. Section 846 of title 21 provides that the available penalties for a controlled
substances conspiracy violation are "the same ... as those prescribed for the offense,
the commission of which was the object of the ... conspiracy." Under id. § 841(b)(1),
the penalties for "the offense" of drug distribution — which was the object of the
conspiracy for which petitioner was convicted — vary according to whether a given
substantive "violation" is one "involving" at least a certain amount of drugs. Petitioner received a life sentence on the conspiracy count, based on the sum of the
amounts involved in all distributions that were found to be within the scope of the
conspiratorial agreement as a whole, even though no single agreed-upon transaction
exceeded the threshold quantity required for such a sentence. The question, on
which the Circuits are divided, is:

On what basis is the quantity of controlled substances "involved" in the
"violation" ascertained for purposes of determining the maximum sentence on
a conviction for conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. § 846, when the "offense" of
"distribution" is the object of the conspiracy?

Should this Court's decision in United States v. Olano be overruled in part?