Opinion ID: 204059
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Due Process and Sixth Amendment Rights

Text: Appellant's more powerful argument is that the application of Rule 606(b) to prevent juror testimony about racial or ethnic statements made in jury deliberations is unconstitutional, violating a defendant's right to due process under the Fifth Amendment, and to a trial by an impartial jury as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. [4] U.S. Const. amends V, VI. Constitutional issues are reviewed de novo. United States v. Rosario-Diaz, 202 F.3d 54, 70 (1st Cir.2000). The Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a fair trial by a panel of impartial, `indifferent' jurors. The failure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961) (internal citations omitted). One touchstone of a fair trial is an impartial trier of fact  `a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it.' McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 554, 104 S.Ct. 845, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984) (quoting Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217, 102 S.Ct. 940, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982) (habeas case involving claims of denial of due process due to juror bias)). When questions of juror bias are raised, the Supreme Court has long recognized that it would not be safe to lay down any inflexible rule because there might be instances in which such testimony of the juror could not be excluded without `violating the plainest principles of justice.' This might occur in the gravest and most important cases. . . . McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 268-69, 35 S.Ct. 783, 59 L.Ed. 1300 (1915); see also United States v. Dioguardi, 492 F.2d 70, 79 n. 12 (2d Cir.1974) (stating the rule that possible internal abnormalities in a jury will not be inquired into except `in the gravest and most important cases') (quoting McDonald, 238 U.S. at 269, 35 S.Ct. 783) (emphasis added). The obvious difficulty with prejudice in a judicial context is that it prevents the impartial decision-making that both the Sixth Amendment and fundamental fair play require. United States v. Heller, 785 F.2d 1524, 1527 (11th Cir.1986) (reversing jury verdict based on a voir dire of deliberating jurors where the religious prejudice displayed by the jurors . . . is so shocking to the conscience and potentially so damaging to public confidence in the equity of our system of justice, that we must act decisively to correct any possible harmful effects on this appellant); see also United States v. McClinton, 135 F.3d 1178, 1185 (7th Cir. 1998) (The Fifth and Sixth Amendments protect a criminal defendant from a jury's lynch mob mentality through the guarantees of due process of law and trial by an impartial jury.). Tanner did not address the issue of racial bias but instead involved issues of juror competence. The Supreme Court recognized that a defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to an unimpaired jury, but concluded that, because there were several aspects of the trial process that could protect this right, the district court's invocation of a rule of evidence to bar juror testimony did not amount to a constitutional violation. Tanner, 483 U.S. at 126-27, 107 S.Ct. 2739. The Court listed voir dire, observations of the jury by counsel and the court during trial, opportunities for jurors to report inappropriate juror behavior prior to rendering a verdict, and the admissibility of non-juror testimony as to wrongdoing as examples of other sources of protection for a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights. Id. at 127, 107 S.Ct. 2739. After Tanner, courts have struggled with its application to cases involving the possibility of Sixth Amendment violations during jury deliberations. In two habeas challenges involving state court convictions, two circuits have suggested that the use of juror testimony may be appropriate in the rare case where due process and Sixth Amendment concerns are implicated. In Shillcutt, the Seventh Circuit held that the intent of Rule 606(b) was to preclude post-verdict juror testimony, but nonetheless proceeded to address the constitutional question: The rule of juror incompetency cannot be applied in such an unfair manner as to deny due process. Thus, further review may be necessary in the occasional case in order to discover the extremely rare abuse that could exist even after the court has applied the rule and determined the evidence incompetent. In short, although our scope of review is narrow at this stage, we must consider whether prejudice pervaded the jury room, whether there is a substantial probability that the alleged racial slur made a difference in the outcome of the trial. 827 F.2d at 1159 (involving the following comment made by a juror during the last twenty minutes of six hour deliberations: Let's be logical; he's a black, and he sees a seventeen year old white girl  I know the type.). See also Anderson v. Miller, 346 F.3d 315, 327-29 (2d Cir.2003) (raising constitutional concerns regarding scope of Rule 606(b)'s preclusion of juror testimony if there were credible allegations that a juror's safety was threatened by fellow jurors); but see Williams v. Price, 343 F.3d 223, 225-35 (3d Cir.2003) (Alito, J.) (applying the narrow habeas standard in a case involving allegations that one juror called another a nigger lover, the court stated that Tanner implies that the Constitution does not require the admission of evidence that falls within Rule 606(b)'s prohibition, and as such, the state courts did not violate `clearly established Federal law' in refusing to consider those statements.). Many courts have recognized that Rule 606(b) should not be applied dogmatically where there is a possibility of juror bias during deliberations that would violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights. See, e.g., Heller, 785 F.2d at 1527 (involving a voir dire of jurors who made anti-Semitic comments); Wright v. United States, 559 F.Supp. 1139, 1151 (E.D.N.Y.1983) (Certainly, if a criminal defendant could show that the jury was racially prejudiced, such evidence could not be ignored without trampling the [S]ixth [A]mendment's guarantee to a fair trial and an impartial jury.); Tobias v. Smith, 468 F.Supp. 1287, 1289-90 (W.D.N.Y.1979) (requiring an evidentiary hearing when the petitioner presented a juror affidavit describing two racially charged statements allegedly made during deliberations, including the remark [y]ou can't tell one black from another. They all look alike.); Smith v. Brewer, 444 F.Supp. 482, 490 (S.D.Iowa 1978) (Where . . . an offer of proof showed that there was a substantial likelihood that a criminal defendant was prejudiced by the influence of racial bias in the jury room, to ignore the evidence might very well offend fundamental fairness); Commonwealth v. Laguer, 410 Mass. 89, 97, 571 N.E.2d 371, 376 (1991) (concluding that, although juror bias could not be considered admissible as an extraneous matter under the state's non-impeachment rule (which is similar to Fed. R. of Evid. 606(b)), a hearing on the question of ethnic slurs against Hispanics was nevertheless required to determine whether the ethnically-biased statements were made because the possibility raised by the affidavit that the defendant did not receive a trial by an impartial jury, which was his fundamental right, cannot be ignored). See generally Racist Juror Misconduct During Deliberations, 101 Harv. L.Rev. 1595, 1597 (1988) (Although few courts have admitted juror testimony of racist jury misconduct, most courts at least acknowledge that [R]ule 606(b) could not be applied to exclude such evidence if, taken at face value, the evidence established a constitutional violation.). Recently, the Tenth Circuit held that Tanner precluded inquiry into claims that racist statements were made in the jury room during the trial of a Native American defendant for assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon. Several days after the defendant was convicted, a juror reported to defense counsel that, during deliberations, the foreman insisted that `[w]hen Indians get alcohol, they all get drunk' and that when they get drunk, they get violent. Benally, 546 F.3d at 1231. Several jurors apparently discussed the need to send a message back to the reservation. Id. at 1232. After considering juror affidavits, the trial court held that two jurors lied during voir dire about their experiences with Native Americans and that a new trial was warranted. Id. The Tenth Circuit reversed, asserting that it is not necessarily in the interest of overall justice to attempt to cure defects such as possible racial prejudice in the jury process: As the Court said in Tanner, There is little doubt that postverdict investigation into juror misconduct would in some instances lead to the invalidation of verdicts reached after irresponsible or improper juror behavior. It is not at all clear, however, that the jury system could survive such efforts to perfect it. Id. at 1240 (quoting Tanner, 483 U.S. at 120, 107 S.Ct. 2739). The Tenth Circuit turned to the four protections the Tanner Court characterized as protective of a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights: the voir dire process, the ability of the court and counsel to observe jurors during the trial, the ability of jurors to make pre-verdict reports of misconduct, and the availability of post-verdict impeachment through non-juror evidence of misconduct. Id. ([I]n most if not all cases [these protections] serve to protect the defendant's Sixth Amendment right without breaching the ban on post-verdict juror testimony.). Acknowledging that at least two of Tanner 's listed protections might not be effective at identifying racist (as opposed to drunken) jurors, the Benally court concluded that, because jury perfection is an untenable goal, the safeguards noted in Tanner were sufficiently protective. Id. (noting, however, that a judge may not be able to easily identify racist jurors through observation and that voir dire might be a feeble protection if a juror is determined to lie.). The court rejected the defendant's attempt to distinguish Tanner on the grounds that racial bias is a more serious danger to the justice system than intoxicated jurors. Acknowledging, though, that the constitutional argument was the most powerful one, the court nonetheless was skeptical of the Shillcutt approach, concluding on an appellate record that this was not a case . . . where the verdict itself was shown to be based on the defendant's race rather than on the evidence and the law. Id. at 1239, 1241. While the issue is difficult and close, we believe that the rule against juror impeachment cannot be applied so inflexibly as to bar juror testimony in those rare and grave cases where claims of racial or ethnic bias during jury deliberations implicate a defendant's right to due process and an impartial jury. In our view, the four protections relied on by the Tanner Court do not provide adequate safeguards in the context of racially and ethnically biased comments made during deliberations. While individual pre-trial voir dire of the jurors can help to disclose prejudice, it has shortcomings because some jurors may be reluctant to admit racial bias. [5] In addition, visual observations of the jury by counsel and the court during trial are unlikely to identify jurors harboring racial or ethnic bias. Likewise, non-jurors are more likely to report inappropriate conduct  such as alcohol or drug use  among jurors than racial statements uttered during deliberations to which they are not privy. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court here did have the discretion to inquire into the validity of the verdict by hearing juror testimony to determine whether ethnically biased statements were made during jury deliberations and, if so, whether there is a substantial probability that any such comments made a difference in the outcome of the trial. The experienced trial judge in this case suggested that he might have conducted such an inquiry if he had possessed the discretion to do so. Although we conclude that the district court erred when it concluded that it had no discretion to hold an inquiry into possible bias in jury deliberations, we emphasize that not every stray or isolated off-base statement made during deliberations requires a hearing at which jury testimony is taken. As courts and commentators have highlighted, the need to protect a frank and candid jury deliberation process is a strong policy consideration. Still, at the other extreme, there are certain rare and exceptional cases involving racial or ethnic prejudice that require hearing jury testimony to determine whether a defendant received a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment. The determination of whether an inquiry is necessary to vindicate a criminally accused's constitutional due process and Sixth Amendment rights is best made by the trial judge, who is most familiar with the strength of the evidence and best able to determine the probability of prejudice from an inappropriate racial or ethnic comment. There is nothing about the evidence in this case that allows us to make this determination on appeal. We need not decide here what procedures the trial judge should follow if he decides to make such an inquiry on remand. See United States v. Mikutowicz, 365 F.3d 65, 74 (1st Cir.2004) ([A] district court maintains significant discretion in determining the type of investigation required by a juror misconduct claim.); Ortiz-Arrigoitia, 996 F.2d at 443 (noting that a trial judge is not . . . shackled to a rigid and unyielding set [of][sic] rules and procedures but rather is vested with the discretion to fashion an appropriate and responsible procedure to determine whether misconduct actually occurred and whether it was prejudicial); Mahoney v. Vondergritt, 938 F.2d at 1492 (upholding trial judge's decision not to go beyond a preliminary inquiry, held without counsel present, into post-verdict allegations that jurors did not confine their deliberations to evidence presented at trial). Despite our view that there is a constitutional outer limit, we stress that the policies embodied in Rule 606(b) and underscored in Tanner are extremely important; the rule itself is rooted in a longstanding concern about intruding into jury deliberations and the problems that would be caused if jury verdicts could be easily undermined by post-judgment comments volunteered by (or in some cases) coaxed from jurors with second thoughts. In this case, we do not say that we would necessarily have pressed for further inquiry based on the somewhat terse and perhaps ambiguous report of a single juror if the district judge had not indicated his interest in doing so but for the bar of Rule 606(b), which he deemed absolute. But, as we have said, the district judge is in the best position to make the initial judgment. If in this case he thinks further inquiry appropriate, he is free to proceed; if he thinks the passage of time alters that initial disposition, that too is within his province.