Title: Barriner v. District Court
Citation: 484 P.2d 774
Docket Number: 25106
State: Colorado
Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court
Date: May 10, 1971

484 P.2d 774 (1971) Henry Carl BARRINER, Petitioner, v. DISTRICT COURT, DIVISION I IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF JEFFERSON, State of Colorado, Honorable Ronald J. Hardesty, Judge, and A. L. Herrmann, District Attorney, First Judicial District of the State of Colorado, Respondents. No. 25106. Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. May 10, 1971. Gerash &amp; Kaiser, Walter L. Gerash, Denver, for petitioner. A. L. Herrmann, Jr., Dist. Atty., Golden, for respondents. *775 KELLEY, Justice. This is an original proceeding. The petitioner seeks relief in the nature of prohibition to enjoin a second trial after a previously declared mistrial. C.A.R. 21. We issued a rule to show cause why the relief sought should not be granted to which the respondents have answered. The issue raised by the proceeding is whether, under the circumstances hereinafter set forth, petitioner's right under Article II, § 18 of the Constitution of Colorado, not to "be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense," has been infringed. The following circumstances gave rise to the controversy before us: The petitioner was charged with assault with intent to commit rape. His trial by a jury occurred on June 2 and 3, 1970. At 5:00 p. m. on June 3, the case was submitted to the jury and the court announced that it, "* * * will be in recess until we get a verdict." At 11:35 p. m. on June 3 the court, in chambers and out of the presence of the jury, with the defendant and respective counsel present, made the following statement: These further facts appear in the judge's remarks in connection with the court's denial of petitioner's motion to dismiss: The defense of double jeopardy is based upon Article II, § 18 of the Constitution of Colorado which provides: *776 Colorado Rules of Criminal Procedure 31 (a) (2) is pertinent to the consideration of the question of double jeopardy in the posture in which this case has been presented to us. In material part, it reads: See also C.R.S.1963, 39-7-20. The petitioner places his principal reliance upon Paulson v. Superior Court of El Dorado County, 58 Cal. 2d 1, 22 Cal. Rptr. 649, 372 P.2d 641. Paulson holds that after jeopardy attaches, if a jury is discharged without returning a verdict, the defendant cannot again be put in jeopardy unless he consented to the discharge or legal necessity required it. The respondents argue that Paulson is not applicable, because the decision rested upon a California statute and, unlike the instant case, the petitioner there did not consent to the discharge of the jury. For reasons which will hereafter appear, we are not convinced that respondent's position is well taken. To begin with, as far back as 1889, in the application of Colo.Const. art. II, § 18 (and the equivalent of Crim.P. 31(a) (2)), Colorado formulated a rule of law which is comparable to the statute upon which the California Supreme Court relied. In re Allison, 13 Colo. 525, 22 P. 820; Brown v. People, 132 Colo. 561, 291 P.2d 680. As to the question of consent and waiver, a further analysis of that argument will be developed subsequently in this opinion. The facts in this case are as important in what does not appear as are the facts which we have outlined. We note that there was no motion for a mistrial by the district attorney; that in that last session in open court at 11:35 p. m., there was no indication of an inability on the part of the jury to agree upon a verdict. In fact, no juror ever stated in open court that he thought the jury could not agree on a verdict. The jury was discharged by the bailiff without the jury returning to the court room to directly communicate the state of their deliberations to the trial judge. Under the constitution, "If the jury disagree, * * * the accused shall not be deemed to have been in jeopardy." The question, therefore, before us is: Did the jury disagree, within the contemplation of that term as used in the constitution? We answer this question in the negative. In reaching our conclusion, a closer look at In re Allison, supra, is indicated. In that case, the court stated the law and the public policy of this state to be: In Brown v. People, supra, the court adopted this language from United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579, 22 U.S. 579, 6 L.Ed. 165: The court in Brown laid down these further guidelines: As pointed out above, the declaration of a mistrial, because of the inability of the jury to agree upon a verdict, lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge. Consequently, in the absence of an abuse of that discretion, the discharge of a jury and a declaration of a mistrial for inability of the jury to reach an agreement is not error, and the defendant, under such circumstances, has not been placed in jeopardy. We conclude from our study of the situation above-described that the court failed to exercise its power with that degree of caution which the circumstances demanded. The primary deficiency, as we view it, lies in the court's failure to determine as a matter of fact that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked immediately before its discharge. The fact that the bailiff reported to the judge by telephone at 2:00 a. m. that the jury was deadlocked does not alter the situation. Crim.P. 31(a) (2) proscribes the practice followed by the court. Informal communications between the court and jury, via the bailiff, are improper. All communications should be made in open court with the parties afforded an opportunity to make timely objections to any action by the court or jury which might be deemed irregular. The court recognized the latitude of his power in the situation with which he was confronted at 2:00 a. m. when he said: "The only other alternative the court had at that time was to put the jury to bed." He should have either done this or had the jury and counsel summoned into open court to inquire into the state of its deliberations. We return now to the question of whether the petitioner consented to the discharge of the jury under the peculiar circumstances of this case. The petitioner urges that the "consent" has no force or validity, because the conditions and assumptions upon which it was based were never legally met. The petitioner, he continues, agreed to a future situation where the jury was "hopelessly deadlocked," where he had a right to anticipate that the court would follow the usual procedures in discharging a jury, not to the declaration of a mistrial based upon hearsay *778 and procedural violations of the bailiff done totally off the record and out of court, where no objection to the procedure was possible. We agree with the petitioner's position. The rule is made absolute.