Opinion ID: 1057579
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: the replacement of a juror during the sentencing phase of the trial

Text: Mr. Hester takes issues with the trial court's decision to replace a juror who became ill following the guilt phase of the trial with an alternative juror who had not participated in the guilt phase deliberations. The Court of Appeals found no fault with the trial court. We have determined that the trial court did not err by replacing the juror who became ill with an alternate juror.
On the evening of March 11, 2005, following the completion of the guilt phase of Mr. Hester's trial, one of the jurors informed the court officers that he was feeling ill. The trial court talked with the juror and then informed the lawyers that the juror suffered from diverticulosis that was causing him to have panic attacks. The trial court observed that the juror was not in good shape right now. Accordingly, the trial court informed the lawyers that it was excusing the juror and that it intended to replace the stricken juror with one of the alternate jurors. The juror was subsequently transported to the emergency room by ambulance. At the beginning of the proceedings the following morning, Mr. Hester's lawyer took issue with the actions that the trial court had taken at the close of proceedings the evening before. He argued that the mistrial was necessary because the alternate juror had not been one of the twelve jurors who had deliberated and returned a verdict during the guilt phase of the trial. The trial court declined to grant a mistrial. On appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the trial court did not err in replacing the stricken juror with an alternate before the jury retired to deliberate the defendant's sentence in the penalty phase of his capital trial. State v. Hester, 2009 WL 275760, at . Before this Court, Mr. Hester contends that the trial court actions violated his rights under the Fifth, [63] Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 6 of the Tennessee Constitution, and Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 24. We disagree. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(a) requires bifurcated trials in first degree murder cases where the State seeks the death penalty. Specifically, the statute provides that [t]he separate sentencing hearing shall be conducted as soon as practicable before the same jury that determined guilt, subject to the provisions of subsection (k) relating to certain retrials on punishment. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(a). [64] With regard to the use of alternate jurors, Tenn. R.Crim. P. 24(f)(2)(B) states that [a]lternate jurors in the order in which they are called shall replace jurors who become unable or disqualified to perform their duties prior to the time the jury retires to consider its verdict. An alternate juror who does not replace a regular juror shall be discharged when the jury retires to consider its verdict. As noted by the Court of Criminal Appeals, these provisions do not ... speak directly to the use of alternate jurors in the context of a bifurcated capital trial. Further, our research has revealed no Tennessee case addressing the use of alternate jurors during a capital trial after a determination of the defendant's guilt, but before sentencing deliberations have begun. State v. Hester, 2009 WL 275760, at . For reasons addressed below, we have concluded that the trial court did not err by replacing the ill juror with an alternate juror following the conclusion of the guilt phase but prior to the beginning of sentencing deliberations.
We first turn to Mr. Hester's contention that it is unconstitutional to replace one of the jurors who participated in the guilt phase deliberations of his trial with an alternate juror who did not. While other courts have declined to find such actions constitutionally impermissible, [65] Mr. Hester insists that our decision in State v. Bobo, 814 S.W.2d 353 (Tenn.1991) requires us to reach a different result. The substantive differences between the circumstances involved in State v. Bobo and the circumstances of this case undermine Mr. Hester's argument. The Bobo case did not involve a bifurcated trial. In State v. Bobo , the jury had already commenced its deliberations when the juror was replaced, and the alternate juror had already left the courthouse after being discharged by the trial court. State v. Bobo, 814 S.W.2d at 354-55. In addition, the trial court failed to instruct the jury to begin its deliberations anew after the alternate juror was seated. State v. Bobo, 814 S.W.2d at 355. Accordingly, this Court found that without an explicit instruction to that effect from the trial judge, we cannot assume that the reconstituted jury panel started from the beginning. State v. Bobo, 814 S.W.2d at 356. Consequently, it was not at all certain that the alternate juror ... took part in all the deliberations, thereby depriving the defendants of their constitutional right to a trial by jury. State v. Bobo, 814 S.W.2d at 356. The facts of Mr. Hester's case simply do not correspond with the circumstances that confronted this Court in State v. Bobo . [66] Accordingly, we decline to find that our holding in State v. Bobo requires us to hold that the trial court infringed on Mr. Hester's constitutional rights when it replaced an ill juror with an alternate juror before the jury began its deliberations following the sentencing phase of the trial.
The more complicated matter is whether the procedure utilized by the trial court in replacing an ill juror following the guilt phase but prior to the deliberations during the sentencing phase violated the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure or the statutory provisions relating to capital sentencing. Other courts, both state and federal, that have considered this question with regard to similar language under their respective statutes and procedural rules have found substitution during the sentencing phase to be consistent with their applicable statutory and rule provisions. Considering strikingly similar language both in its statute and its procedural rule, [67] the Wyoming Supreme Court found no violation when the trial court replaced a juror during the sentencing phase of a capital proceeding. The Court explained its rationale as follows: [I]t seems clear that the term verdict used in Rule 24(e) must be read in a broad sense to refer to a final jury decision on any matter specifically committed to it. Not only must it be read to refer to a determination of the defendant's guilt of a crime, but also to a jury's separate determination of a matter of the sort typically involved in bifurcated proceedingssuch as a defendant's habitual criminal status or the propriety of the death penalty. We agree with the State that this was precisely the intent of the statute and, pursuant to such a view, a capital case jury may be said to retire to consider its verdict twice, once for the guilt phase and once for the sentencing phase, and alternate jurors are authorized to serve in sentencing phase deliberations even if they did not serve during the guilt phase, so long as the replacement is made before the jury retires to begin sentencing phase deliberations. The legislative intent of the statutory phrase the jury which determined defendant's guilt includes properly substituted alternates, and we find no error in denying the motion for a mistrial. Olsen v. State, 67 P.3d 536, 606 (Wyo. 2003). In a case with close factual parallels to the case before us, the Supreme Court of Ohio, interpreting language similar to the language of Tennessee's provisions [68] also found no error in substituting an alternate juror prior to beginning the sentencing deliberations. Like the Wyoming Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Ohio found no violation of Ohio's statutory capital sentencing provisions or its Rules of Criminal Procedure where an alternate juror is substituted for another juror after the guilt phase verdict but before deliberations begin in the sentencing phase. State v. Hutton, 53 Ohio St.3d 36, 559 N.E.2d 432, 443-45 (1990). [69] The Supreme Court of Missouri reached the same conclusion when it held: [a]llowing juror replacement during penalty phase, but before the jury retires to deliberate, is entirely consistent with both the legislative purpose of preventing mistrials and the statutory exception. This Court concludes that the legislature intended to afford the same protection against mistrials in bifurcated cases that it afforded in non-bifurcated cases; therefore, alternate jurors may properly serve in sentencing phase deliberations only. This conclusion, of course, is also entirely consistent with the practice of conducting penalty phase trials with completely new juries whenever the imposition of the death penalty is overturned on appeal. State v. Johnson, 968 S.W.2d 123, 132 (Mo. 1998). The court has also found that the Missouri statutory scheme, which requires that a first-degree murder defendant receive a guilt phase and a penalty phase `before the same trier,' does not prohibit the use of an alternate juror before deliberations begin. State v. Middleton, 995 S.W.2d 443, 459-60 (Mo.1999). The court did specify that substitution would be prohibited if the deliberations had already begun. State v. Middleton, 995 S.W.2d at 460; State v. Johnson, 968 S.W.2d at 132. Federal courts have addressed comparable language under the Federal Death Penalty Act [70] and a previous version of Fed.R.Crim.P. 24(c). [71] Confronted by the replacement of a juror in a capital proceeding following the guilt phase but prior to deliberations in the sentencing phase, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that, under the existing statutory and procedural rules, no provision [had been made] for the situation that occurred here, leaving it to the good sense of the judges to deal with. United States v. Johnson, 223 F.3d 665, 670 (7th Cir.2000). The Court noted that the alternate juror had sat through the entire trial, which is the important thing. United States v. Johnson, 223 F.3d at 670. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, noting that [t]he trial court's retention of alternates was a wise decision and proved its worth by allowing the court to avoid possibly declaring a mistrial after a complex capital case had been ably presented by both parties over the course of several weeks. Battle v. United States, 419 F.3d 1292, 1302 (11th Cir.2005). [72] Mr. Hester failed to address whether the trial court's actions were contrary to Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(a) [73] in his principal brief, supplemental brief, or reply brief. Accordingly, any argument that the trial court's actions were inconsistent with the requirement of the case being heard by the same jury pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(a) have been waived. We note that alternate jurors in Tennessee are selected in the same manner as the regular jurors and that they hear the same evidence presented during the guilt phase of the trial that the regular members of the jury hear. Given the substantial authority finding that statutory provisions similar to ours authorize the replacement of jurors with alternates during the sentencing phase of a capital proceeding, we have concluded that the trial court's decision to replace an ill juror with a nondischarged alternate juror does not appear to constitute a plain error under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-204(a). Finally, Mr. Hester argues that the trial court's replacement of the stricken juror with an alternate juror violated Tenn. R.Crim. P. 24(f)(2)(B). This rule states that [a]lternate jurors in the order in which they are called shall replace jurors who become unable or disqualified to perform their duties prior to the time the jury retires to consider its verdict. An alternate juror who does not replace a regular juror shall be discharged when the jury retires to consider its verdict. By its own terms, this rule does not clearly apply to the replacement of a juror in the context of a bifurcated capital case. In the context of such proceedings, there are, as ably noted by our judicial colleagues on other state courts, essentially two verdictsone for the guilt phase and one on the question of sentencing. We find no error in the trial court's decision, which ultimately was shown to be prudent, to not discharge all of the alternate jurors prior to the commencement of deliberations by the jury following the sentencing hearing.