Title: TONY D. SISNEROS v. CITY OF LARAMIE

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

TONY D. SISNEROS v. CITY OF LARAMIE1989 WY 110773 P.2d 933Case Number: 88-303Decided: 05/15/1989Supreme Court of Wyoming
TONY D. SISNEROS, 
PETITIONER,

v.

CITY OF LARAMIE, 
RESPONDENT.

Appeal from the District 
Court, AlbanyCounty, Arthur T. Hanscum, 
Jr., J.

Lisa C. Sweeney, 
Laramie, for petitioner.

Bruce B. Waters 
of Smith, Stanfield & Scott, Laramie, for respondent.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

GOLDEN, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     We granted certiorari 
in this case to review petitioner Tony D. Sisneros' contention that juror 
coercion denied him a fair jury trial on charges of driving while under the 
influence of alcohol. He seeks reversal of the municipal court's denial of his 
motion for a new trial, which denial was later affirmed by the district court on 
appeal. We affirm the decision of the district court.

[¶2.]     On September 1, 1987, 
respondent City of Laramie (City) charged Sisneros with driving while under the 
influence in violation of the Municipal Code of the City of Laramie § 10.24.010 
(1984). He was tried by a jury on March 3, 1988. The trial lasted one full day, 
and after each party had presented its case, the jury was instructed and retired 
to deliberate.

[¶3.]     After the jury 
deliberated for some time, the jury foreperson, a Mr. Gruman, left the jury room 
and contacted the bailiff, telling her the jury had a question for the trial 
court. The trial court allowed the jury to return to the courtroom where they 
inquired what evidentiary weight they should attribute to the field sobriety 
tests the police gave to Sisneros when he was arrested. The trial court told the 
jurors that they would have to make that determination for themselves, and they 
returned to the jury room for more deliberation.

[¶4.]     After another hour of 
deliberation, Mr. Gruman again left the jury room, found the bailiff, and told 
her the jury was dead-locked. At this time only one juror, Ms. Barela, had voted 
not to convict. The bailiff told Mr. Gruman to return to the jury room.1 The bailiff then informed the trial 
court of Mr. Gruman's comments. The trial court contacted both parties' counsel 
and discussed giving the jury further instructions.

[¶5.]     Simultaneously, Mr. 
Gruman returned to the jury room and made a statement to his fellow jurors about 
his impression of what the bailiff had told him. Further deliberation ensued, 
and after about twenty minutes, Ms. Barela changed her vote to guilty. The jury 
informed the trial court it had reached a verdict and the trial court called 
them into the courtroom where they returned a verdict of guilty. After the 
verdict was announced, the defense polled the jury and each member, including 
Ms. Barela, confirmed a finding of guilty.

[¶6.]     The next day Ms. Barela 
contacted the trial court and said that she had rendered a guilty verdict even 
though she still had reservations whether Sisneros was guilty beyond a 
reasonable doubt. In response, the trial court held an investigatory hearing 
March 7, 1988, at which Ms. Barela testified concerning the events of the 
previous day. The trial court heard this evidence and denied Sisneros' W.R.Cr.P. 
34 motion for a new trial.

[¶7.]     Sisneros filed an 
appeal from the trial court's decision on May 26, 1988, in the district court. 
On June 13, 1988, the district court entered an Order for Remand and 
Investigation of Jury. This order found that Ms. Barela and other jurors were 
competent to testify on the matter under W.R.E. 606(b) and instructed the trial 
court to take testimony from Mr. Gruman, Ms. Barela, and the bailiff and city 
court clerk.

[¶8.]     On remand, the original 
trial court judge recused himself and was replaced by another municipal judge. 
The trial court held the post-verdict investigatory hearing on June 28, 1988, 
and the bailiff, Ms. Barela, and Mr. Gruman testified about what happened the 
day of Sisneros' trial. During this hearing, Sisneros' counsel lodged a curious 
W.R.E. 606(b) objection to the trial court's questions to Mr. Gruman concerning 
his perceptions of what transpired in the jury room after the bailiff instructed 
him to return there while she notified the trial court that the jury was 
deadlocked. The trial court overruled this objection, noting that Sisneros was 
the party who had instigated an investigation into what transpired in the jury 
room in the first place. After the hearing, the trial court found that the 
bailiff's instruction to Mr. Gruman to return to the jury room was not improper. 
It then went on to find that statements Mr. Gruman made upon returning to the 
jury room were improper or prejudicial, but that they did not warrant a new 
trial. The trial court filed a written order on June 29, 1988, denying Sisneros' 
second motion for a new trial.

[¶9.]     Sisneros appealed that 
decision to the district court, which affirmed. Sisneros appealed the district 
court affirmance to this court; this court denied the appeal due to a 
jurisdictional defect. After that denial Sisneros filed a petition for writ of 
certiorari asking this court to grant review of the case on that basis. The writ 
was granted.

[¶10.]  We review Sisneros' claim for relief from 
the trial court's denial of his W.R.Cr.P. 34 motion for a new trial under the 
abuse of discretion standard. Applied in Hoskins v. State, 552 P.2d 342, 351 
(Wyo. 1976), 
cert. denied, 430 U.S. 956, 97 S. Ct. 1602, 51 L. Ed. 2d 806 (1977). See also 
Martin v. State, 720 P.2d 894, 897 (Wyo. 1986) (defining judicial discretion). 
Accord United States v. 
Bruscino, 687 F.2d 938, 940-41 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1228, 103 S. Ct. 1235, 75 L. Ed. 2d 468 (1983) (discussing same standard of review for F.R.C.P. 33, which 
contains similar language); and Braley v. State, 741 P.2d 1061, 1066 (Wyo. 1987). A corollary 
concern in this case is the one raised by Sisneros' counsel in the post-verdict 
investigatory hearing: What evidence of juror conduct was admissible in the 
post-trial investigation under W.R.E. 606(b)? Our review of this issue bears 
ultimately on the determination whether the trial court abused its discretion 
when it denied Sisneros' motion for a new trial.

[¶11.]  A criminal defendant has a constitutional 
right to be fairly tried by an impartial jury. The United States Supreme Court 
recognized this in Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363, 87 S. Ct. 468, 17 L. Ed. 2d 420 
(1966), a case in which a conviction for second-degree murder was reversed on 
review of the denial of post-conviction relief because the bailiff had expressed 
an opinion that the defendant was guilty to one of the deliberating jurors. 
Id., 385 U.S.  at 366, 87 S. Ct.  at 471, 17 L. Ed. 2d  at 423. See also cases collected at Annotation, 
Communication Between Court Officials or Attendants and Jurors in Criminal Trial 
as Ground for Mistrial or Reversal - Post-Parker Cases, 35 A.L.R.4th 890 (1985). 
In the federal courts, an allegation of extraneous influence on a juror raises a 
rebuttable presumption of prejudice, which must be addressed in a post-verdict 
investigation. See, e.g., United States v. Hornung, 848 F.2d 1040, 1045 (10th Cir. 1988), cert. denied sub. nom. Green v. United States, ___ 
U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 1349, 103 L. Ed. 2d 817 (1989) (citing Remmer v. United 
States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S. Ct. 450, 451, 98 L. Ed. 654, 656 
(1954)).

[¶12.]  The United States Supreme Court also 
recognized that examination of jurors at a post-verdict investigatory hearing 
needed to be carefully controlled. Jurors need to be confident that they will 
not be subjected to post-verdict harassment each time they render a verdict. See 
Hornung, 848 F.2d  at 1045; and Braley, 741 P.2d  at 1066. To protect a 
defendant's need to have an avenue for exposing a jury verdict that may have 
been the product of improper outside influence and to protect jurors from undue 
post-verdict harassment, the Court adopted F.R.E. 606(b) in 1975.2 This court promulgated a nearly 
identical W.R.E. 606(b) in 1978; that rule controls these situations in 
Wyoming. Under 
W.R.E. 606(b):

Inquiry into validity of 
verdict or indictment. - Upon an inquiry into 
the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify as to any 
matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations or 
to the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as 
influencing him to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or 
concerning his mental processes in connection therewith, nor may his affidavit 
or evidence of any statement by him concerning a matter about which he would be 
precluded from testifying he received, but a juror may testify on the questions 
whether extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury's 
attention or whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear upon 
any juror.3

[¶13.]  Federal courts review trial court 
investigations of alleged jury misconduct by applying F.R.E. 606(b) objectively so that evidence of juror 
deliberations is excluded unless there is a proper threshold finding that 
extraneous prejudicial information or outside influence was somehow improperly 
brought to bear upon the deliberating jurors. For example, recently in Hornung, 
848 F.2d  at 1045, after determining that a post-verdict investigatory hearing 
was warranted, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated:

"[D]ue process does not 
require a new trial every time a juror has been placed in a potentially 
compromising situation." Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217, 
102 S. Ct. 940, 946, 71 L. Ed. 2d 78, [85] (1982) (addressing due process claim 
premised on juror bias). When a trial court is apprised of the fact that 
extrinsic influence may have tainted the trial, the proper remedy is a hearing 
to determine the circumstances of the improper contact and the extent of the 
prejudice, if any, to the defendant. The 
court's questioning of a juror who is the recipient of extraneous information is 
limited to the circumstances and nature of the improper contact, as Fed.R.Evid. 
606(b) precludes the court from delving into the subjective effect of the 
contact on the juror's decision-making. Accordingly, an objective test should be 
applied in making an assessment of whether the defendant was prejudiced by the 
extraneous information. The court "should assess the `possibility of prejudice' 
by reviewing the entire record, analyzing the substance of the extrinsic 
evidence and comparing it to that information of which the jurors were properly 
aware." United 
States v. Weiss, 752 F.2d 777, 783 (2d Cir.), 
cert. denied, 474 U.S. 944, 106 S. Ct. 308, 88 L. Ed. 2d 285 
(1985).

(Emphasis added; 
some citations omitted). We essentially adopted this standard for W.R.E. 606(b) 
in Braley, 741 P.2d  at 1066, relying on numerous federal cases cited therein. 
See also Lessard v. State, 719 P.2d 227, 232-33 (Wyo. 1986).

[¶14.]  Properly applied, F.R.E. 606(b) can operate to prohibit testimony 
concerning "certain conduct by the jurors which has no verifiable outward 
manifestations." J. Berger and M. Weinstein, supra, ¶ 606[04] at 606-33. One 
example of this is the rule's exclusion of testimony concerning jurors' own 
perceptions that they would be forced to deliberate until an agreement was 
reached. United 
States v. Weiner, 578 F.2d 757, 764 (9th Cir.), 
cert. denied, 439 U.S. 981, 99 S. Ct. 568, 58 L. Ed. 2d 651 (1978) (guilty verdict 
could not be impeached by testimony from juror who allegedly voted guilty, with 
reservation, but confirmed a guilty vote when polled).

[¶15.]  Applying W.R.E. 606(b) objectively to the 
evidence presented at the Sisneros' second post-verdict investigatory hearing, 
we can only conclude that much of the testimony Sisneros now relies on 
concerning what Mr. Gruman said after the bailiff told him to go back into the 
jury room, and any juror conversations after he did return, was inadmissible 
evidence under W.R.E. 606(b). Both parties to this appeal agree that the only 
extraneous information or outside influence that could have affected this jury 
was the bailiff's instruction to Mr. Gruman that he should return to the jury 
room. At the conclusion of the second post-verdict investigatory hearing, the 
trial court found that the bailiff's statement was not prejudicial or improperly 
brought to bear upon the deliberating jury. It did not establish a judicial 
basis under the language of W.R.E. 606(b) for the trial court to delve deeper 
into the actual deliberations of a wavering juror. Braley, 741 P.2d  at 1066. 
Consequently, considering the entire record, we find Mr. Gruman's testimony of 
what he said after he returned to the jury room as instructed by the bailiff, 
and Ms. Barela's testimony concerning the effect his comments may have had on 
her deliberation, did not constitute evidence the trial court could use to 
render a decision on the motion for new trial once it found the bailiff's 
contact to be proper under W.R.E. 606(b).

[¶16.]  With this in mind, we conclude that the 
trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Sisneros' motion for a 
new trial. Even though the trial court may have actually considered those 
inadmissible statements of Mr. Gruman and Ms. Barela concerning actual jury 
deliberations in Mr. Sisneros' trial, it still ruled that a new trial was not 
justified. In this posture, having determined the trial court may have 
considered more than it should have, we certainly cannot find any abuse of trial 
court discretion in the denial of Sisneros' motion for a new trial under the 
Martin standard.

[¶17.]  Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 At the second 
post-verdict investigatory hearing the bailiff testified that after Mr. Gruman 
told her the jury might be deadlocked she responded: "Fine, would [he] please go 
back into the jury room." She also told him she "would contact the judge." At 
the same hearing, Mr. Gruman testified that after he emerged from the jury room 
and told the bailiff the jury was deadlocked, the bailiff told him "Don't say 
another word, just go back in until we contact you."

2 For a recount of House 
of Representatives Advisory Committee debate on F.R.E. 606(b) before it was 
promulgated by the Court, see J. Weinstein and M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence, 
¶ 606[08] at 606-87 (1988).

3 This rule is identical 
to F.R.E. 606(b) (1987), except that it contains an additional phrase which was 
present in F.R.E. 606(b) (1974), concerning the use of a juror's affidavit; 
also, F.R.E. 606(b) (1987) is gender neutral. See J. Weinstein and M. Berger, 
Weinstein's Evidence, ¶ 606[08] at 606-87 (1988).