Opinion ID: 1744864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: assignment number one

Text: In this assignment of error, the defendants complain of the trial judge's denial of their motion for a change of venue. The motion was based on articles published in the Shreveport Times and the Sabine Index newspapers which identified the defendants as Black Muslim murder suspects. At the hearing on the motion, the newspaper articles were introduced into evidence. One defendant, Vivian Kahey, who is a black man, testified that he believed white people were devils, but that he was not a Black Muslim. The trial judge denied the motion for change of venue, finding that the defendants had not proved that the newspaper articles had any impact upon the general population. Further, the judge concluded that the news information or articles themselves were not sufficient to create a presumption of inflammation of the public against the defendants. The defendants noted for the record their rights under Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure article 621 to reurge the motion prior to the swearing of the first witness. Subsequently, however, thirteen days before trial, the defendants waived their rights to a trial by jury. The first question is whether the waiver of the trial by jury effects a waiver of a defendant's right to a change of venue. We conclude that it does not. Our change of venue rule is not restricted to jury trials. Compare La.C.Cr.P. 622 with Fla.Rules of Crim.Proc., Rule 3.240(a) (The defendant may move for a change of venue on the ground that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had in the county where the case is pending for any reason other than the interest and prejudice of the trial judge). Moreover, the grounds for change of venue are broader than those of many jurisdictions and include a consideration of whether the prejudice, the influence, or the other reasons are such that they will affect the... testimony of witnesses at the trial. La.C.Cr.P. art. 622. That a case will be tried before a judge instead of a jury does not render the venue question moot under our law. [1] The approach of Article 622 is consistent with the view of a majority of jurisdictions and a leading law reform agency. The A.B.A. Standards Relating to Fair Trial and Free Press § 3.2(e), at 119-20 (App. Draft 1968), provide that the claim that the venue should have been changed or a continuance granted shall not be considered to have been waived by the waiver of the right to trial by jury or by the failure to exercise all available peremptory challenges. The rationale supporting the standard is contained in its accompanying comments: (T)he subsection provides that the right to a continuance or transfer shall not be deemed to have been waived by waiver of a jury or by failure to exhaust all peremptory challenges. The suggestion of some courts that such conduct amounts to a waiver seems to require the defendant to take unnecessary risks. If the defendant has satisfied the criterion for the granting of relief, it should not matter that he has subsequently waived a jury, perhaps out of fear that even a jury meeting accepted standards will not be truly free from bias, or has failed to use his peremptory challenges, perhaps because he prefers the ills he has to others he has not yet seen. Two of the three reported cases that have been decided since the adoption of the A.B.A. standard appear to have adopted its position. See State v. Johnson, 318 N.W.2d 417 (Iowa 1982); [2] Commonwealth v. Dobrolenski, 460 Pa. 630, 334 A.2d 268 (1975). Contra, Brisbin v. Schauer, 176 Colo. 550, 492 P.2d 835 (1971), holding that the waiver of the jury rendered a venue question moot. The constitutional standard of fairness requires that a defendant have a panel of impartial, indifferent jurors. Qualified jurors need not, however, be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved. To hold that the mere existence of any preconceived notion as to the guilt or innocence of an accused, without more, is sufficient to rebut the presumption of a prospective juror's impartiality would be to establish an impossible standard. It is sufficient if the juror can lay aside his impression or opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court. Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 800, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 2036, 44 L.Ed.2d 589, 595 (1975); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722-23, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 1642, 61 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961); State v. Morris, 429 So.2d 111 (La.1983); State v. Goodson, 412 So.2d 1077 (La.1982). At the same time, the juror's assurances that he is equal to this task cannot be dispositive of the accused's rights. Murphy v. Florida, supra . If the defendant can demonstrate the actual existence of a fixed opinion as to the defendant's guilt, the individual juror may be excluded by a challenge for cause. If the defendant can demonstrate that actual prejudice, influence, or other reasons exist which will affect the answers of the jurors on the voir dire examination or the testimony of the witnesses at trial, the court must take this into consideration in deciding whether to grant a change of venue. La.C.Cr.P. art. 622; State v. Morris; supra ; State v. Goodson, supra ; State v. Rodrigue, 409 So.2d 556 (La.1982). Moreover, although extensive knowledge in the community of either the crimes or the putative criminal and his prior crimes is not in itself sufficient to render a trial constitutionally unfair, unfairness of a constitutional magnitude may be presumed so as to require a change of venue if the trial atmosphere has been utterly corrupted by press coverage. Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977); Murphy v. Florida, supra ; State v. Morris, supra ; State v. Goodson, supra . The record in this case does not justify a presumption that the defendant could not obtain a fair trial because of a trial atmosphere utterly corrupted by press coverage. The only publicity brought to the court's attention was a series of newspaper articles in the Shreveport Times and the Sabine Index. The articles appeared during a period of about five weeks following the death of the victim. The most strenuous complaint by the defendant relates to an article in the Sabine Index, which appeared on the front page of the November 6, 1980 edition alongside two other stories concerning the alleged murder. The headline read Black Muslim Charged in Death. The articles explained the tenets of the Black Muslim faith, including the belief that Christianity was a white man's religion, and the white man was a devil. The defendants complain that this article was especially prejudicial since they are not Black Muslims. The last of these articles appeared fourteen months prior to the beginning of the trial. While the defendant demonstrated that the circulation of the Sabine Index was 4,300 copies, under the circumstances of this case we cannot presume that the trial atmosphere was utterly corrupted by press coverage. In State v. Goodson, supra , we found that the introduction of thirty-five newspaper articles and one hundred and eight triple-spaced pages of transcripts of newscasts by local television stations publicizing the famed Highland rapist did not warrant a presumption of prejudice, since it did not appear that a Bossier Parish jury would be affected by the Shreveport news media's reports of crimes that occurred in Caddo Parish. In State v. Morris, supra , newspaper and radio publicity, as late as the morning of the trial, which simply announced that the defendant was being tried for the second time, did not justify a presumption of prejudice. The record of the voir dire demonstrated that the defendant was able to select an impartial jury. In State v. Wilkerson, 403 So.2d 652 (La.1981) the introduction in a case involving kidnapping of policemen of newspaper accounts linking the defendants to the Dixie Mafia, and characterizing both codefendants as fugitives from other states did not justify a presumption of prejudice. [T]he nature of the publicity in this case was not inflammatory or prejudicial but mainly involved factual accounts. The degree of circulation may have been somewhat widespread (Richland Parish is a small parish), although some [jurors] did testify they heard nothing of the event. The publicity surrounding the event was apparently limited to only a few days after the perpetration of the crime. 403 So.2d at 657. Nor did we find a presumption of prejudice justified in State v. Bell, 346 So.2d 1090 (La.1977), although the massive publicity which had been given to the Black Muslim riots in Baton Rouge several years before the trial resulted in difficulty in selecting a jury. As in State v. Goodson, supra , we cannot say based on the record, which consists entirely of the quantum of publicity which the events received, that the publicity was of such a character that a juror exposed to it should have been presumed prejudiced regardless of whether he said he could remain impartial. The evidence in this case does not justify a presumption that the trial atmosphere has been utterly corrupted by press coverage. Dobbert v. Florida, supra ; State v. Morris, supra . See Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966), Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965), Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723, 83 S.Ct. 1417, 10 L.Ed.2d 663 (1963), and State v. Harper, 430 So.2d 627 (La.1983), for examples of circumstances justifying a presumption of prejudice. The defendants failed to demonstrate actual prejudice, influence or other reasons existing in the community which would affect the juror's answers on voir dire. There was no evidence introduced during the hearing to suggest that the newspaper accounts had any effect on the community. The only witnesses were the publisher of the Sabine Index, the reporter who wrote the articles, and one of the defendants. The publisher and reporter testified that they were unaware of any strong community sentiment against the defendants. Although the defendants had ample time before trial to discover evidence of public bias, they chose instead to waive their right to a jury and to go to trial without renewing their efforts to change the venue. We, therefore, are confined to the record of the hearing on the motion, which is inadequate to substantiate a claim of prejudice in the collective mind of the community sufficient to deprive these defendants of a fair trial. Under these circumstances, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in finding that an impartial jury could have been empaneled or that local hostility toward the defendants would not prevent a fair trial. Therefore, this assignment of error lacks merit.