Opinion ID: 722508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Pre-deliberation Discussions

Text: 49 The five juror affiants all indicated that jurors discussed the case before deliberations. Because the only extraneous material shown as having been discussed was the article restating the alligator shoes testimony, see page 278 above, the court held that the jurors' statements about the conversations were inadmissible under Rule 606(b). 821 F.Supp. at 741-42. 50 Appellants argue that Rule 606(b) does not apply to pre-deliberation discussions, since the Rule on its face applies only to deliberations. Accordingly, they say, the court should have questioned the entire jury on this point. The government counters that Rule 606(b) does not apply to pre-deliberation discussions discovered mid-trial, but does apply to the same discussions discovered post-trial. 51 While the law is slightly obscure, it appears that even if Rule 606(b) does not actually bar receipt of evidence of pre-deliberation discussions, a trial court is virtually automatically justified in declining to pursue such an inquiry. In Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987), the Court considered post-trial claims that members of the jury had, during the trial, consumed so much alcohol at lunch that they had slept through afternoon sessions of the trial. The Court read Rule 606(b) as drawing a distinction between external influences (admissible under the exception) and internal matters, among which the common law had firmly classified the jurors' physical or mental incompetence. Id. at 117-18, 107 S.Ct. at 2745-46. The trial judge had refused to pursue the defendants' allegations of drinking and sleeping, and the Supreme Court said that it did not err in deciding, based on the inadmissibility of juror testimony and the clear insufficiency of the nonjuror evidence offered by petitioners, that an additional postverdict evidentiary hearing was unnecessary. Id. at 127, 107 S.Ct. at 2751. The Court reserved the question whether Rule 606(b) might preserve a common-law exception allowing postverdict inquiry of juror incompetence after it had been shown by powerful extrinsic evidence. Id. at 125, 107 S.Ct. at 2750. 52 We have drawn the same line, coupled with the same ambiguous hint that under some circumstances the district court could query the jurors on purely internal matters. See United States v. Wilson, 534 F.2d 375, 378-79 (D.C.Cir.1976) (quoting with approval Government of the Virgin Islands v. Gereau, 523 F.2d 140, 148-50 (3d Cir.1975), which draws such a line, but ultimately affirming on the basis of the trial judge's discretion in handling claims of irregularity); United States v. Campbell, 684 F.2d 141, 151 (D.C.Cir.1982) (similar). In a case involving mid-trial discovery of pre-deliberation discussions, the Third Circuit seems to have somewhat retreated from Gereau, saying that it was no basis for holding that premature jury deliberations, as a form of intra-jury influence, can never be the grounds for overturning a verdict. United States v. Resko, 3 F.3d 684, 694 n. 8 (3d Cir.1993). See also United States v. Bertoli, 40 F.3d 1384, 1395-96 & n. 5 (3d Cir.1994). It is worth noting, in thinking of the Third Circuit's position, that Rule 606(b)'s ban applies not only to statements made during the course of the jury's deliberations but also 53 to the effect of anything upon that or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing the juror to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or concerning the [319 U.S.App.D.C. 282] juror's mental processes in connection therewith.... 54 Of course this might encompass only individual jurors' internal cognitive processes, but Tanner, in upholding the trial court's refusal to take evidence from jurors as to other jurors' imbibing and sleeping, clearly states a broader rule, based on its understanding of the common law background norm. Further, other courts besides ours have followed Gereau. See United States v. Tierney, 947 F.2d 854, 869 (8th Cir.1991) (adopting Gereau approach); United States v. Cuthel, 903 F.2d 1381, 1383 (11th Cir.1990) (holding that pre-deliberation intra-jury communications cannot serve as the basis for a challenge to the verdict). 55 Preserving the finality of jury verdicts militates strongly in favor of barring post-trial juror assertions of pre-deliberation discussion. The probability of some adverse effect on the verdict is far less than for extraneous influences. [W]hen there are premature deliberations among jurors with no allegations of external influence on the jury, the proper process for jury decisionmaking has been violated, but there is no reason to doubt that the jury based its ultimate decision only on evidence formally presented at trial. United States v. Resko, 3 F.3d at 690. And admission of such affidavits would place a powerful weapon in the hands of a juror who senses that his viewpoint is not shared by his fellows--deliberate promotion of pre-deliberation conversations, a move that fellow jurors would be far less likely to report to the court than references to outside materials. 56 Of course some reformers have proposed completely doing away with the rule against intra-jury discussion of the case before the formal start of deliberations, presumably reasoning that jurors are mature enough to discuss the case during the trial in a tentative way, without settling into final opinions until the case is fully in. 1 One panel recommending such changes has argued that allowing the discussions prevents secretive conversations and formation of cliques, 2 presumably reasoning that jurors, whose salient common interest must be the trial unfolding before them for several hours a day, are most unlikely to obey the strictures of the standard rule. 57 But we can resolve this issue without regard to such radical ideas. Even if Rule 606(b) and the common law allow jurors to make post-verdict claims of pre-deliberation discussions, we have, along with other circuits, left trial courts especially broad discretion  'to determine what manner of hearing, if any, is warranted'  about intra-jury misconduct. Campbell, 684 F.2d at 151 (quoting Wilson, 534 F.2d at 379). See also, e.g., Resko, 3 F.3d at 690; United States v. Edwards, 696 F.2d 1277, 1282 (11th Cir.1983); Grooms v. Wainwright, 610 F.2d 344, 347 (5th Cir.1980). The decision of the trial court not to hold a post-trial hearing on the subject was clearly within that discretion.