Opinion ID: 1476684
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Measures taken by the trial court

Text: Defendant argues in this application that his conviction and sentence should be vacated because the trial court failed to interview the contacted jurors and to have an open hearing on the potential harm to his rights caused by the reporter's phone calls. He urges this Court to presume that he was prejudiced by the reporter phone calls, relying on Remmer v. United States, in which the United States Supreme Court stated: In a criminal case, any 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, if not made in pursuance of known rules of the court and the instructions and directions of the court made during the trial, with full knowledge of the parties. 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. [347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 451, 98 L.Ed. 654, 656 (1954).] Remmer created a prophylactic rule whose purpose was to protect the impartiality of the jury. It does not follow that any deviation from its suggested measures constitutes a violation of a defendant's right to an impartial jury. If that right remains protected, the alleged violation is harmless. Thus, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's statement about the steps a trial court should take to preserve a jury from polluting influences, the key here is to determine whether defendant was harmed by either the court's, or counsels', handling of the reporter contact issue at the time it arose. That is the ultimate question. We note, in that respect, that questions have arisen concerning the ongoing viability of the Remmer presumption. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 739, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1780, 123 L.Ed. 2d 508, 522 (1993) (There may be cases where an intrusion should be presumed prejudicial ..., but a presumption of prejudice as opposed to a specific analysis does not change the ultimate inquiry: Did the intrusion affect the jury's deliberations and thereby its verdict?); United States v. Williams-Davis, 90 F. 3d 490, 496-97 (D.C.Cir.1996) (noting that the cases no longer treat the presumption as particularly forceful, and approving the Fourth Circuit's view that `while a presumption of prejudice attaches to an impermissible communication, the presumption is not one to be casually invoked' (quoting Stockton v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 852 F. 2d 740, 745 (4th Cir. 1988))). In our view, the trial court should have interrogated the reporter on the record in the presence of trial counsel. Although the trial court's handling of the juror contact by the reporter was not appropriate, it does not constitute grounds for reversal. It does make review more difficult. We have consistently required trial courts to protect both jurors and their deliberations from illegitimate influences that threaten to taint the verdict. Bey, supra, 112 N.J. at 75, 548 A. 2d 846. Trial courts must seek out and expose outside factors impinging upon the jury's freedom of action and its impartiality and essential integrity. In re Kozlov, 79 N.J. 232, 239, 398 A. 2d 882 (1979). Moreover, an adequate inquiry on the record is necessary for the purposes of appellate review. State v. Scherzer, 301 N.J.Super. 363, 488, 694 A. 2d 196 (App.Div.1997) (citations omitted). The context in which this juror-contact issue arose is very important. The court and counsel were highly sensitized about the possible contaminating effect of juror exposure to noxious trial publicity. The jurors who were subjected to extensive screening about newspaper contact, were keenly aware of the intense press interest. Indeed, the out-of-county jurors received extraordinary transportation to and from the courthouse to minimize the risk of exposure to media coverage of the trial. Regular showings of hands were taken of jurors each time counsel were concerned about a particularly egregious news account that had entered the public domain. The court's and counsels' concerns thus were made known to jurors through numerous interactions between the court and the jurors in this multiple-week-long trial, then in its second segment (penalty). Against that backdrop, we find it significant that it was the jurors who volunteered promptly the information about the reporter's phone calls. Several of them approached Sergeant Petro to report the contact. In these circumstances, it is reasonable to infer that a juror would have told Sergeant Petro if the contact was more than simply thata contact, or inquiry, as the court phrased it, seeking unsuccessfully a juror comment. Although we do not approve the way the trial court handled the matter, we can make use of the measures the court did take in our assessment of whether defendant suffered any harm. The trial court spoke with the reporter in camera. On the record, before the jury and parties, the court did not convey any concern that juror taint occurred. The trial court described the reporter's contact merely as a telephone call of inquiry,  and no juror raised any further issue. Moreover, its characterization of the phone call as merely one of inquiry was echoed in the notes of the defense investigator, Tim Dolan, who wrote that the reporter called jurors to solicit comments. We are not moved by unsupported suggestions that jurors would have felt intimidated by the reporter or unprotected by the court, regardless of what the reporter said. Under these circumstances, we are satisfied that no harm befell the defendant as a result of the trial court's handling of this contact by a reporter new to the courtroom.