Opinion ID: 2567166
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: applicability of pike

Text: ¶ 8 We review the court of appeals' decision for correctness and grant no deference to its conclusions of law. State v. James, 2000 UT 80, ¶ 8, 13 P.3d 576. We begin by reviewing the court of appeals' application of the Pike test to the case before us. In Pike, the defendant, after being convicted in a jury trial, requested a new trial on the basis that he was unfairly prejudiced when three jurors had a brief conversation with a key State witness during a recess in the trial. 712 P.2d at 279. We held that [a]nything more than the most incidental contact during the trial between witnesses and jurors casts doubt upon the impartiality of the jury and at best gives the appearance of the absence of impartiality. Id. at 279-80. We reiterated our rule that such contact raises a rebuttable presumption of prejudice, which places the burden upon the prosecution to prove that the unauthorized contact did not influence the juror. Id. at 280. ¶ 9 We advanced two reasons for our holding in Pike. First, the rebuttable presumption is necessary because of the inherent difficulty in proving how or whether a juror has in fact been influenced by conversing with a participant in the trial. Id. Such difficulty stems in part from the fact that prejudice may well exist even though it is not provable and even though a person who [has] been tainted may not, himself, be able to recognize that fact. Id. ¶ 10 Second, we reasoned that contact between jurors and witnesses creates an appearance of impropriety that has a deleterious effect upon the judicial process. Id. We noted that mingling of jurors and prominent witnesses could not be condoned because `it is probable that a doubt must and will continue to exist in the mind of the losing party and that of his friends as to whether or not he had a fair trial.' Id. (quoting Glazier v. Cram, 71 Utah 465, 267 P. 188, 190 (1928)). ¶ 11 Based on the foregoing reasons, we held that the State must prove that the juror was not influenced by an unauthorized encounter with one of the parties. Pike, 712 P.2d at 280. A mere showing that the juror denied being influenced by the encounter was not enough. Id. at 281. ¶ 12 The State does not dispute the merits of the Pike presumption. It merely contends that while a Pike analysis is appropriate when considering juror-witness contact that occurs after voir dire, it does not apply to pre-voir dire contact, as occurred in this case, because the voir dire process itself is the mechanism for detecting possible biases of prospective jurors. Instead, the State insists that we should analyze Juror Chamberlain's alleged omissions during voir dire concerning her contact with Detective Beesley under the two-pronged test enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 556, 104 S.Ct. 845, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984). In McDonough, the Supreme Court established a framework, which we have adopted, State v. Thomas, 830 P.2d 243, 245 (Utah 1992), for approaching juror challenges based on such alleged omissions. ¶ 13 Shipp, on the other hand, contends that the same concerns about the appearance of impropriety that we noted in Pike apply to contact between a witness and juror whether the contact occurs in the parking lot, on the way into court, [or in] the courtroom before or during a recess. Shipp argues that since the prospective jurors in this case had already filled out a questionnaire and were being seated for in-court voir dire when the contact occurred, there was enough of an appearance of impropriety to cause a presumption of prejudice. ¶ 14 Underpinning our opinion in Pike is our obligation to protect the constitutional guarantee of a trial by an impartial jury. 712 P.2d at 279; see Utah Const. art. I, § 10. Although contact before voir dire may implicate the concerns we raised in Pike relating to the appearance of impropriety and the possibility of influence over the juror, the voir dire process, as the State correctly asserts, already exists as a means to unearth and assess any possible bias and prejudice in potential jurors. See State v. Reed, 2000 UT 68, ¶ 11, 8 P.3d 1025 (`Voir dire examination has as its proper purposes both the detection of actual bias and the collection of data to permit informed exercise of the peremptory challenge.' (quoting State v. Taylor, 664 P.2d 439, 447 (Utah 1983))); State v. Saunders, 1999 UT 59, ¶ 34, 992 P.2d 951 (Voir dire is intended to provide a tool for counsel and the court to carefully and skillfully determine, by inquiry, whether biases and prejudices, latent as well as acknowledged, will interfere with a fair trial if a particular juror serves in it.). Furthermore, attaching a Pike presumption of prejudice with its associated rebuttal requirement to any pre-voir dire interactions of a prospective juror would not only dilute our longstanding voir dire procedure, but also place an unfair and improper burden on the State. ¶ 15 Nevertheless, Shipp argues that the voir dire filtering process failed in this case because it did not detect the contact between Juror Chamberlain and Detective Beesley, therefore making the Pike presumption a necessary remedy. [2] However, Utah courts already have a mechanism in place for remedying allegedly dishonest responses to voir dire questions. As recently as last November, we reiterated our long-standing position that the test articulated in McDonough, 464 U.S. at 556, 104 S.Ct. 845 governs post-trial challenges to a juror based on the juror's alleged misstatements or omissions during voir dire. West v. Holley, 2004 UT 97, ¶ 11, 103 P.3d 708. ¶ 16 In the case before us, the court of appeals did not examine the alleged juror misconduct as required by our cases adopting the McDonough test. Rather, it applied the Pike presumption to the contact between Juror Chamberlain and Detective Beesley that occurred before voir dire and conducted its analysis of the district court's decision in light of that standard. Shipp, 2004 UT App 40 at ¶ 7, 86 P.3d 763. However, we have never extended the Pike presumption to pre-voir dire contact. In the two instances where we have addressed whether juror-witness contact has infringed on jury impartiality, the contact occurred during trial after voir dire. State v. Erickson, 749 P.2d 620, 620 (Utah 1987); Pike, 712 P.2d at 279. Furthermore, in all the court of appeals cases that subsequently applied Pike, the contact between witness and juror occurred after voir dire. See, e.g., State v. Swain, 835 P.2d 1009, 1010 (Utah Ct.App.1992); State v. Day, 815 P.2d 1345, 1349 (Utah Ct.App.1991). ¶ 17 Given the district court's ability in voir dire to ferret out a prospective juror's prejudice or bias and, under McDonough, to correct alleged juror misconduct that occurs during voir dire, it is clear that the Pike presumption is neither a necessary nor appropriate remedy for the alleged prejudice that arose from the contact between Juror Chamberlain and Detective Beesley before voir dire. Indeed, we categorically hold that the Pike presumption of prejudice does not apply to contact that occurs before the completion of voir dire under any circumstances, but applies to events that occur only after the jury has been empaneled. We turn now to a McDonough analysis of Juror Chamberlain's alleged misstatements during voir dire.