at the trial court has not had the testimony
read or repeated to the accused, the Supreme Court held that a deaf
person is not deprived of due process of law because he had not heard a
word of the evidence. It also did not overlook the fact the defendant
"made no objection, asked for nothing, and permitted his counsel to take
his own course."

That the presence of the accused may be dispensed with at various stages
of criminal proceedings was further conceded by the Court in Frank _v._
Mangum,[947] wherein it held that the presence of the defendant when the
verdict is rendered is not essential, and, accordingly, that a rule of
practice allowing the accused to waive it and which bound him by that
waiver did not effect any unconstitutional deprivation. Enumerating many
departures from common law procedure respecting jury trials, including
provisions waiving the presence of an accused during portions of a
trial, the Court emphasized that none of these changes had been
construed as conflicting with the Fourteenth Amendment. More recently,
the Court, sustained, by only a five-to-four vote, however, a conviction
for murder where the trial court rejected the defendant's request that
he be present at a view of the scene of the murder to which the jury had
been taken.[948] Acknowledging that it had never squarely held, though
it now assumed, that "the privilege to confront one's accusers and
cross-examine them face to face" in State court prosecutions "is
reinforced by the Fourteenth Amendment," the majority devised the
following standard for disposing of similar cases in the future. "In a
prosecution for a felony," five Justices declared, "the defendant has
the privilege under the Fourteenth Amendment to be present in his own
person whenever his presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to
the fulness of his opportunity to defend against the charge. * * * The
Fourteenth Amendment does not assume to a defendant the privilege to be
present [when] * * * presence would be useless, or the benefit but a
shadow. * * * The presence of a defendant is a condition of due process
to the extent that a fair and just hearing would be thwarted by his
absence, and to that extent only." Employing this standard of appraisal,
the majority therefore concluded that no harm or damage had been done to
the accused by reason of his failure to be present when the jury viewed
the site of the murder.[949]

To what extent, consistently with due proc