Opinion ID: 771926
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Bribery Attempt

Text: 18 The Supreme Court announced the standard governing allegations of jury tampering in Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227 (1954) (Remmer I). In that case, a juror had been approached during the trial by a man who suggested that the juror could profit by bringing in a verdict favorable to the petitioner. Id. at 228. The Court held that [a]ny private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury is, for obvious reasons, deemed presumptively prejudicial . . . . The presumption is not conclusive, but the burden rests heavily upon the Government to establish, after notice to and hearing of the defendant, that such contact with the juror was harmless to the defendant. Id. at 229. The Court remanded the case to the district court for a hearing to determine whether the alleged contact had been harmless to the petitioner. 19 On remand, the district court concluded that the petitioner had not been prejudiced by the bribery attempt. The Court again granted certiorari and again reversed, finding that the bribery attempt might have affected the juror's freedom of action and had clearly left him a disturbed and troubled man. Remmer v. United States, 350 U.S. 377, 381 (1956) (Remmer II). The Court reaffirmed that it is the law's objective to guard jealously the sanctity of the jury's right to operate as freely as possible from outside unauthorized intrusions purposefully made. Id. at 382. The Court did not consider the weight of the government's case or indicate in any way whether the evidence of guilt was or was not overwhelming. 20 Since the Remmer cases, it has been clear that jury tampering creates a presumption of prejudice and that the government carries the heavy burden of rebutting that presumption. In United States v. Dutkel, 192 F.3d 893 (9th Cir. 1999) -decided after the district court's order denying appellants' new trial motion -this court explained that allegations of jury tampering are qualitatively more prejudicial than other kinds of extraneous influence on the jury's deliberations: Because jury tampering cuts to the heart of the Sixth Amendment's promise of a fair trial, we treat jury tampering cases very differently from other cases of jury misconduct. Id. at 894. Dutkel, like this appeal, involved allegations that one codefendant in a joint trial had bribed a juror -in that case, successfully. The co-defendant who arranged the bribe secured a hung jury for himself, but Dutkel was convicted. We held that even though the bribery scheme had been carried out by and on behalf of Dutkel's co-defendant, the Remmer presumption of prejudice applied to Dutkel because the tampering may have affected the juror in the exercise of his judgment. Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 897. 21 In evaluating allegations of jury tampering, Dutkel holds that we must first determine whether a defendant has made a prima facie showing that the intrusion had such an adverse effect on the deliberations. Id. The adverse effect standard is a low one: Unless the district court finds that this showing is entirely frivolous or wholly implausible, it must order a Remmer hearing to explore the degree of the intrusion and likely prejudice suffered by the defendant. Id. In evaluating such prejudice, the court need not conclude that the verdict . . . would have been different but for the jury tampering, but rather that the course of deliberations was materially affected by the intrusion. Id. at 899. 22 The district court, in rejecting appellants' new trial motion based on the attempted bribery of juror Quihuis, conducted the requisite hearing but applied what Dutkel has since made clear is an incorrect legal standard. Rather than examining whether the bribery attempt interfered with the jury's deliberations by distracting one or more of the jurors, id. at 897, the court considered whether the jury was substantially swayed by the alleged misconduct. The standard applied by the district court derives from jury misconduct cases that do not involve allegations of jury tampering, but rather involve more common and less pernicious extraneous influences on jury deliberations. In fact, with the exception of Remmer, none of the cases cited by the district court involved jury tampering. 8 Dutkel expressly distinguishes the prosaic kinds of jury misconduct cases cited by the district court from the much more serious intrusion of a bribe or threat. Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 895. Accordingly, the court erred in basing its decision on the overwhelming evidence of appellants' guilt rather than considering the effect of the bribery attempt on the course of deliberations. 23 Although, as mentioned earlier, juror Quihuis invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and declined to testify at the evidentiary hearing, sufficient evidence of the effect of the attempted bribe on Quihuis was introduced to convince us that the matter should be remanded to the district court for further consideration in light of Dutkel. For example, in an interview with defense investigator Jerry Mulligan, Quihuis described the impact of the bribery attempt: 24 Mulligan: Did you ever go to the judge [to report the bribery attempt]? 25 Quihuis: No I was scared. I was extremely extremely scared that if I went to the judge something would happen to me or my family. 26 Mulligan: Why were you scared? 27 Quihuis: Because what happened with uh ear lier in the case so called I believe it was Alex Quevas 9 uh Bustamante wanted Alex Quevas to do something on the stand or else he'd never see his son again. It kind of crossed my mind, freaked me out that maybe if I didn't cooperate maybe if I did do this some thing would happen to me so I was try ing to be quiet and I was in fear that something would happen to me and my family and no way do I wanna go through a government relocation pro gram and never see my family again. 28 In the same conversation, Quihuis insisted that the bribery attempt had not affected his judgment, but he conceded that it screwed with me as far as I felt threatened that if I didn't cooperate, something would happen to me or my family because Mike [Malachowski] knew where I lived, and if he's talking to Darryl [Henley], what makes you think he hasn't given my address to Darryl, and like I said reflecting back to Bustamante and Quevas do you ever wanna see your son walk again crossed my mind. That if I don't cooperate, something's gonna happen to me and my family. Quihuis provided essentially the same account when he was interviewed by the FBI after the bribery scheme came to light, as recounted in the FBI's report: 29 QUIHUIS never told Judge TAYLOR about this incident because he feared that he or his family would be in jeopardy. He learned at the trial that defendant RAFAEL BUSTAMENTE threatened a witness, ALEX QUEVIS [sic], that he would kill his son if QUEVIS did not purger [sic] himself in the trial . . . . 30 After the verdict, QUIHUIS mentioned [the brib ery attempt] to his grandparents. His grandparents asked why he did not tell the judge about this. QUI HUIS explained his fear about he [sic] or his family members being hurt. 31 Under Dutkel, the appellants have made a prima facie showing that the intrusion interfered with the jury's deliberations by distracting one or more of the jurors . . .. Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 897. As in Dutkel, there is evidence that Quihuis's contacts with Malachowski and Darryl Henley left him a `disturbed and troubled man,' deeply concerned about his own and his family's safety. Id. at 898 (quoting Remmer II, 350 U.S. at 381). As in Dutkel, Quihuis stated that he was `very scared' by the contacts. Id. Quihuis's fears may wellhave prevented [him] from thinking about the evidence or paying attention to the judge's instructions. Id. Finally, because Quihuis did not report the incident to the court, he had to worry not only about threats to his family, but also about concealing his predicament from the court and his fellow jurors. It is possible that [Quihuis] was hesitant about engaging in the normal give and take of deliberations, for fear of giving himself away. Id. 32 In its brief and at oral argument, the government stated that it did not oppose a limited remand so that the district court could hear Quihuis's sworn testimony. Because Quihuis has now pleaded guilty to charges relating to his conduct in this case, it is likely that he will no longer be able to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and that he may be compelled to testify. We agree that, given the change in circumstances, remand is appropriate in order to afford the district court an opportunity to determine whether the presumption of prejudice can be rebutted under the recently explicated Dutkel standard. Because it is clear that the appellants have made a prima facie showing that the bribery scheme had an adverse effect on Quihuis's deliberations, the government now carries the heavy burden of demonstrating that there is no reasonable possibility that[Quihuis] (or any other juror) `was . . . affected in his freedom of action as a juror' as to [appellants]. Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 899 (quoting Remmer II, 350 U.S. at 381). Unless the district court is convinced that there is no reasonable possibility that the deliberations as to [appellants] were affected by the tampering, the court must vacate [their] conviction[s].  Id. 33 We are left with one further problem regarding the Dutkel remand. The appellants argue that Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), when read with the Remmer cases, renders the presumption of prejudice effectively irrebuttable, because the rule precludes any testimony by a juror as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of deliberations or to the effect of anything upon that or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing the juror to assent or dissent from the verdict or indictment or concerning the juror's mental processes in connection therewith . . . . Fed R. Evid. 606(b). It is clear that the rule permits jurors to testify about 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. Id. Appellants contend, however, that juror testimony about the effect of extraneous information or improper contacts on a juror's state of mind is prohibited. Accordingly, appellants argue, if evidence of tampering is not uncovered prior to the verdict, Remmer's presumption of prejudice becomes irrebuttable, because the court may not consider testimony tending to establish that the tampering had no material effect on the jury's deliberations. The appellants alternatively classify Remmer's presumption as a structural error requiring per se reversal, because appellate review of the magnitude of the harm would be impossible without contravening Rule 606(b). 34 We have already rejected both of those arguments in Dutkel. 10 Although we did not discuss the tension between the government's burden of rebutting the presumption of prejudice and the constraints of Rule 606(b), we expressly noted Rule 606(b) when reaching our decision. Nevertheless, we relied on the fact that the juror in question had himself stated that he was `very scared' by the contacts, as well as testimony from other jurors that the juror was distracted and expressed fear about his family, as support for our conclusion that the juror's deliberations might have been affected by the tampering. Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 898. Similarly, the Fourth Circuit, in a well-reasoned opinion that more squarely confronts the interplay between the Remmer presumption and Rule 606(b), has distinguished between testimony regarding the affected juror's mental processes in reaching the verdict -which is barred by Rule 606(b) -and testimony regarding the juror's more general fear and anxiety following a tampering incident, which is admissible for purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable possibility that the extraneous contact affected the verdict. United States v. Cheek , 94 F.3d 136, 144 (4th Cir. 1996). 35 Thus, statements such as those that Quihius provided to the FBI and to the defense investigator -which reveal Quihuis's professed anxiety about his own and his family's well being -do not fall within Rule 606(b)'s mental processes prohibition and properly form the basis for the presumption that the government must now rebut. In attempting to do so, the government may not ask Quihuis whether, for example, he relied on the evidence introduced at trial in reaching his ver-dict. See Cheek, 94 F.3d at 143 (By asking [the juror] whether he had listened to and considered all the evidence, the government was delving into [the juror's] mental processes about the sufficiency of the evidence in reaching his personal verdict. Such an inquiry exceeded the strict limits imposed by Rule 606(b).). The government is free to question Quihuis, however, about his state of mind in general following the bribery attempt; the district court may then be called upon to evaluate the credibility of any testimony that contradicts Quihuis's earlier accounts. 36 The district court must be mindful that it need not conclude that the verdict as to [the appellants] would have been different but for the jury tampering, Dutkel ,192 F.3d at 899, in order to reverse the convictions. The government has the burden of establishing not that the appellants would have been convicted with or without the bribery attempt, but rather, as Dutkel instructs, that there is no reasonable possibility that Quihuis was affected in his freedom of action as a juror. Id (quotations omitted). In directing district courts to consider such efactors as whether the affected juror was frightened or distracted, and in placing the focus on the jury's deliberative process rather than on its verdict, Dutkel implicitly rejects the overwhelming evidence of guilt rationale that the district court applied below. In fact, Dutkel, like the two Remmer cases, does not so much as mention, anywhere in its analysis, the weight of the evidence at trial. 11 37 On remand, the district court shall conduct its review in light of these principles, and determine whether the government has carried its burden of rebutting the presumption of prejudice arising from the attempted bribery of juror Quihuis.