Opinion ID: 2343191
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admonishment as to publicity (# 11)/alleged media incident (# 46)

Text: Appellant argues that the trial court violated RCr 9.70 and committed reversible error at the beginning of individual voir dire when, before dividing the prospective jurors into groups scheduled to return on later days for individual voir dire, it failed to admonish them not to read about the case. According to Appellant, on the second day of individual voir dire, a local newspaper, The Pioneer News, ran an editorial regarding the trial that addressed the additional security precautions involved. The individual voir dire examination revealed that a number of the prospective jurors had either read the article or overheard others talking about it. Appellant raised no objection at the times he claims the admonition should have been given, but moved the trial court for a mistrial and asked it to strike the jury panel when prospective jurors revealed during individual voir dire that they were aware of the article. RCr 9.70 provides: The jurors, whether permitted to separate or kept in charge of officers, must be admonished by the court that it is their duty not to permit anyone to speak to, or communicate with, them on any subject connected with the trial, and that all attempts to do so should be immediately reported by them to the court, and that they should not converse among themselves on any subject connected with the trial, nor form, nor express any opinion thereon, until the cause be finally submitted to them. This admonition must be given or referred to by the court at each adjournment. Although trial courts have the discretion to admonish prospective jurors on these subjects early in the voir dire process, and we believe it would be the better practice to do so, we agree with the Commonwealth that RCr 9.70 requires this admonition only after the jury has been selected and sworn to try the case. The term jurors as utilized in RCr 9.70 refers to the members of a selected and sworn jury. Compare RCr 9.36(2) (referring to prospective jurors in context of challenges for cause); RCr 9.38 (referring to prospective jurors in context of voir dire examination). In fact, the Administrative Procedures of the Court of Justice (Ad.Proc.) Part II, § 31 require this admonition [i]f the jury is permitted to separate [.] (emphasis added). To the extent that Schweinefuss v. Commonwealth, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 370, 375 (1965), suggests that an RCr 9.70 admonishment is required at this stage of the proceedings, it is hereby overruled. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court was not required to give the RCr 9.70 admonishment to the prospective jurors at the conclusion of the first day of voir dire  or at any time before the jury was sworn  and the trial court thus properly denied Appellant's motion for a mistrial and to strike the jury panel, which were premised on the trial court's failure to give the admonishment. In any event, we agree with the Commonwealth that, under the facts of this case, Appellant has the burden to show actual jury prejudice, Byrd v. Commonwealth, Ky., 825 S.W.2d 272, 274-75 (1992), and that Appellant has failed to demonstrate how he was prejudiced from either the trial court's failure to admonish the jury not to read about the case or the fact that certain jurors apparently were exposed to media coverage. The trial court, the prosecution, and defense counsel each conducted extensive individual voir dire in part to determine whether any press accounts to which prospective jurors may have been exposed might influence their decisions in the case. In Part III(C)(4), infra , we address Appellant's arguments as to the jurors and prospective jurors whom Appellant asserts the trial court should have excused because of their exposure to pretrial publicity. With regard to Appellant's speculative allegation that other prospective or actual jurors might have been exposed to the publicity but weren't discovered, we find no actual prejudice. The trial court did not err when it denied Appellant's request to question an undefined number of deputy sheriffs under oath about an incident that involved a television news reporter who was speaking with a deputy sheriff in the presence of prospective jurors, which allegedly occurred during the first afternoon of individual voir dire. Appellant was allowed to voir dire each member of the jury as to whether they had read about the case in the newspaper, seen television news coverage about it, or overheard other people discussing it. We hold that this voir dire was a more-than-sufficient mechanism to ferret out prospective jurors whose impartiality may have been compromised by the publicity they encountered.