Opinion ID: 1198254
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: trial irregularities

Text: The State contends, additionally, that the Court of Appeals wrongly concluded that the trial court erred in denying Bourgeois a new trial based on what Bourgeois claimed was an improper communication between a juror and the bailiff during trial. Bourgeois argues that the Court of Appeals ruled correctly in this respect and asserts, additionally, that two other incidents of misconduct justify reversal. In a criminal proceeding, a new trial is necessitated only when the defendant has been so prejudiced that nothing short of a new trial can insure that the defendant will be treated fairly. State v. Russell, 125 Wash.2d 24, 85, 882 P.2d 747 (1994); see also State v. Lemieux, 75 Wash.2d 89, 91, 448 P.2d 943 (1968) (Something more than a possibility of prejudice must be shown to warrant a new trial.). The granting or denial of a new trial is a matter primarily within the discretion of the trial court, and the decision will not be disturbed unless there is a clear abuse of discretion. State v. Bartholomew, 98 Wash.2d 173, 211, 654 P.2d 1170 (1982) (quoting State v. Wilson, 71 Wash.2d 895, 899, 431 P.2d 221 (1967)). An abuse of discretion occurs only when no reasonable judge would have reached the same conclusion. Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wash.2d 636, 667, 771 P.2d 711, 780 P.2d 260 (1989). Bourgeois essentially points to three distinct irregularities in the proceedings that he claims rose to the level of misconduct justifying the grant of a new trial. First, he asserts that an allegedly improper ex parte communication occurred between a juror and the trial court's bailiff when the juror told the bailiff that spectators were glaring at Debra Steward. Second, he claims that a spectator or spectators engaged in misconduct by glaring at witnesses and gesturing as if to form a gun while Debra Steward was testifying. Finally, he asserts that jurors improperly discussed the gun-mimicking gesture and glaring during deliberations. We address each issue in turn.
As a general rule, a trial court should not communicate with the jury in the absence of the defendant. State v. Caliguri, 99 Wash.2d 501, 508, 664 P.2d 466 (1983). The bailiff is in a sense the alter-ego of the judge, and is therefore bound by the same constraints. See O'Brien v. City of Seattle, 52 Wash.2d 543, 547-48, 327 P.2d 433 (1958). When an ex parte communication takes place that relates to an aspect of the trial, the trial judge generally should disclose the communication to counsel for all parties. Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 119, 104 S.Ct. 453, 456, 78 L.Ed.2d 267 (1983). Although an improper communication between the court and the jury is an error of constitutional dimensions, State v. Rice, 110 Wash.2d 577, 613, 757 P.2d 889 (1988), the communication may be so inconsequential as to constitute harmless error, Caliguri, 99 Wash.2d at 508, 664 P.2d 466; Rushen, 464 U.S. at 118, 104 S.Ct. at 455. Once a defendant raises the possibility that he or she was prejudiced by an improper communication between the court and jury, the State bears the burden of showing that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Caliguri, 99 Wash.2d at 509, 664 P.2d 466. At the hearing on Bourgeois's motion for a new trial, the trial court concluded that the juror's mentioning of the glaring to the bailiff did not constitute misconduct because there isn't any other way the Court can become aware of that type of thing unless it is brought to the Court's attention. VRP (June 11, 1993) at 52. While we can understand the trial court's reasoning, a communication did take place between the juror and the bailiff. Furthermore, the trial court failed to promptly notify counsel of it. The communication was therefore improper. Nevertheless, we are satisfied that the communication did not prejudice Bourgeois and thus, we agree with the trial court that the incident does not justify a new trial. We believe the situation here is similar to that which we examined in State v. Johnson, 56 Wash.2d 700, 709, 355 P.2d 13 (1960). There, the jurors sent the trial court a note asking for clarification of a jury instruction. The trial court wrote back that it could not comment on the evidence, and was therefore precluded from giving the requested information. Noting that the trial court communicated no information to the jury that was in any manner harmful to the appellant, we held that the communication was improper, but not prejudicial, and therefore not a basis for reversal. Similarly, the trial court here did not communicate any information to the jurors.
We next consider the alleged incidents of spectator misconduct. As the trial court noted, there were two, one being glaring or staring behavior; and the other one being the hand-gesturing in the nature of pointing a gun at the witness. VRP (June 11, 1993) at 52. We are satisfied that the glaring did not warrant a new trial. Although glaring and other acting out by trial spectators is to be discouraged, the extent to which someone glares, as opposed to merely staring, is largely a subjective determination. Moreover, the fact that the trial court and most of the jurors did not observe what two jurors described suggests that it was not pronounced. Absent additional evidence that the spectator misconduct here was more significant, a new trial is not warranted. The gun-mimicking gesture is more significant. We agree with the trial court that it constituted spectator misconduct. The more pertinent question is whether it caused sufficient prejudice to warrant new trial. In determining the effect of an irregularity, an appellate court should examine (1) its seriousness, (2) whether it involved cumulative evidence, and (3) whether the trial court properly instructed the jury to disregard it. State v. Hopson, 113 Wash.2d 273, 284, 778 P.2d 1014 (1989). The gesture here could be viewed as a threat directed at Steward, which was intended to deter her from testifying against Bourgeois. Because fear and retaliation were such central themes in the State's case, the gesture arguably reinforced the impression that the defendant and his friends were the type of people that harm those who testify against them. In that sense it may have reinforced the State's theory that Bourgeois had a motive to commit the charged offenses. On the other hand, there was no indication that Bourgeois directed the spectator to make the threat, or even that the spectator making the gesture was associated with him in any way. The juror's assumption that the spectator was a friend of Bourgeois's is irrelevant. See State v. Ng, 110 Wash.2d 32, 43, 750 P.2d 632 (1988) (jurors thought process inures in the verdict and cannot be used to impeach verdict). The irregularity was fairly serious. Nevertheless, the trial court did not learn of it until after the trial and, consequently, was unable to instruct the jury to disregard it. We cannot say, however, that the misconduct was so significant that the defendant will have been treated unfairly unless granted a new trial. The jury was instructed that it could consider only the testimony of the witnesses and the exhibits admitted into evidence. CP at 312. We assume that the jury followed this instruction and therefore disregarded extraneous matters. See State v. Lough, 125 Wash.2d 847, 864, 889 P.2d 487 (1995); State v. Mak, 105 Wash.2d 692, 702, 718 P.2d 407 (1986), sentence vacated on writ of habeas corpus sub nom. Mak v. Blodgett, 754 F.Supp. 1490 (W.D.Wash.1991), aff'd, 970 F.2d 614 (9th Cir.1992). Bourgeois argues, additionally, that if the trial court had told him of the communication between the spectator and the bailiff, he could have asked to examine the juror and may have learned of the more prejudicial gun-mimicking gesture during the trial. Although we agree that the trial court should have notified counsel of the communication between the bailiff and juror immediately after it learned of it, we fail to see how Bourgeois was prejudiced by the trial court's failure to do so. If the gun-mimicking had come to light, nothing could be done to reverse the occurrence. Although Bourgeois, had he learned of the incident during trial, could have asked the trial court to specifically instruct the jury to disregard the gesture, we strongly suspect that Bourgeois would not have chosen to do so in light of the obvious fact that it would have called more attention to the incident. In any case, as we have noted above, the jury was instructed that it could consider only the testimony of the witnesses and the exhibits admitted into evidence, and we assume that the instruction was followed. We are satisfied that the incident did not prejudice Bourgeois to the extent that a new trial was necessitated.
Finally, we address the alleged communication between two jurors. The injection of information by a juror to fellow jurors, which is outside the recorded evidence of the trial ... constitutes juror misconduct. Richards v. Overlake Hosp., 59 Wash.App. 266, 270, 796 P.2d 737 (1990), review denied, 116 Wash.2d 1014, 807 P.2d 883 (1991) (emphasis omitted). In our judgment, the communication between jurors, even if it occurred, does not warrant a new trial. Significant to our determination is the fact that not one of the jurors recalled hearing about the gesture from another juror. Moreover, even if a second juror had learned of the gun gesture from a fellow juror, it is difficult to conclude that hearing of the gesture would justify reversal when seeing it does not. The communication between jurors did not justify a new trial.