Opinion ID: 414162
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jury selection procedures

Text: 5 Brown argues that he was convicted by a jury which had been prejudicially contaminated through repeated exposure to jury selection voir dire in the cases of three other Northeast Texas county commissioners similarly charged, on similar evidence, with multiple counts of extortion, conspiracy and mail fraud. He also argues that the contamination continued when, during a supplemental individual voir dire on the day his trial began, the trial judge told twelve of the fourteen jurors (there were two alternates) that two of the other county commissioners had pled guilty to the charges against them. 6 The district court set September 14, 1981, as the date for jury selection for Brown's trial. Pursuant to the practice in that division, jury selection for the similar cases pending against two Titus County commissioners, Alvin Parish and Carthel Hubert Reese, and another Bowie County commissioner, J.C. Arnold, was set for the same date. Summoned for jury duty, sixty-plus individuals appeared and were assembled into panels of approximately thirty-one members each for purposes of selecting the respective juries to serve in each of the scheduled trials. Of course, there was an overlapping constituency on the third panel, as well as on the fourth. 7 The juries for the trials of Parish (from panel one) and Reese (from panel two) were selected before jury selection took place in Brown's case. Each of the two voir dires was conducted by Assistant United States Attorney John Hannah, who later conducted the voir dire in the Brown case and in the Arnold case. Hannah also conducted Brown's prosecution. During the voir dires, Hannah told the jury panels of the false invoice-split money schemes with which Parish and Reese were charged. Defense counsel asked members of the jury panels if they knew the expected witnesses against Parish and Reese, Dallas Thompson and Dorothy Griffin, who were later witnesses against Brown. They were also told by Parish's and Reese's defense counsel that members of the FBI would testify against their clients, as they later, in fact, did against Brown. 8 The third jury selected on September 14 was the Brown jury. It was selected from a panel composed of thirty-one individuals who had served on either panel one or two, and who had been voir dired in either Parish's or Reese's case. Three of the jurors selected on Brown's jury had previously been selected as jurors for the coming trial of Parish. 9 The fourth panel was next assembled from among those serving on the earlier panels. Voir dire was then conducted in the Arnold case. During the government's voir dire, the Brown jurors remained in the courtroom. Speaking to the jury panel, Hannah described the false invoice-split money scheme with which Arnold was charged. The scheme was similar to the one later proved against Brown at his trial. 10 On September 16, 1981, the jurors who had been selected in Parish's case reported for service. They were held outside the courtroom while the trial court was informed that Parish and Reese wished to enter a guilty plea. The Parish jury was then brought in, placed in the jury box, and informed by the trial court that Parish had changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. As noted earlier, three of these jurors were later to serve in Brown's case. 11 On September 21, 1981, the Brown jurors reported for service. Apparently because of publicity surrounding Parish's and Reese's guilty pleas and in response to a motion filed by the defense to quash the jury panel and grant a continuance or alternatively to allow [Brown's] attorney to individually voir dire members of the jury, the trial court questioned each member of the jury. They were asked whether any publicity, including the guilty pleas by Reese and Parish, would affect their impartiality and fairness. Each juror replied in the negative. After questioning a juror, the trial court afforded Brown's counsel an opportunity to question that juror. Brown's counsel did not avail himself of these opportunities. He did not challenge any juror.
12 In asking that his conviction be reversed because the jury selection procedures employed in this case deprived him of his constitutionally-mandated right to trial before a fair, impartial and unbiased jury, Brown relies upon three decisions of this court: United States v. Mobley, 656 F.2d 988 (5th Cir.1981); United States v. Jefferson, 569 F.2d 260 (5th Cir.1978); and United States v. Mutchler, 559 F.2d 955 (5th Cir.1977). In these decisions, this court established that jurors who, in the interim after their selection have served as jurors in similar cases, may be challenged for cause. 13 This rule is articulated and delineated in United States v. Mobley, supra at 989: 14 Jefferson makes clear that jurors who, in the interim between their selection as jurors for a particular case, serve as jurors in similar cases may be challenged for cause, Id. at 262. The Jefferson rule distinguishes the situation in which jurors have interim service from cases in which jurors, prior to their selection as jurors for a particular case, served on the jury in a similar case. In this latter situation, although counsel is entitled to develop on voir dire information concerning the nature of a prospective juror's previous jury service, United States v. Montelongo, 507 F.2d 639, 641 (5th Cir.1975), such prior service, even in similar cases during the same term of court cannot support a challenge for cause unless it can be shown that such prior service actually biased the prospective juror. United States v. Reibschlaeger, 528 F.2d 1031, 1032-33 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 828, 97 S.Ct. 86, 50 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). By contrast, Jefferson holds that interim, as distinct from prior, service will support a challenge for cause because [i]nterim service is more proximate in time, and creates a heightened danger of prejudice, which is especially great when the offenses are similar or the witnesses the same.... Id. at 262. 15 In Mutchler, interim jury service occurred when certain jurors, after being selected as jurors in the defendants' case, sat on two preceding cases similar to that against the defendants. One of these trials was conducted by the same prosecutor who later prosecuted the defendants. One of the government's witnesses appeared in both trials. The facts in the defendants' case and the other two trials were very similar. Each involved similar jury instructions and each resulted in guilty verdicts. 16 In Jefferson, a defendant's jury was selected some seven weeks prior to his trial. On the day trial was to begin, the defendant's counsel requested further voir dire of the jurors regarding any jury service in the seven-week interim period between jury selection and the commencement of the defendant's trial. The district court denied the request, suggesting that the information sought was readily available in the clerk's office. The jury found the defendant guilty. On appeal, remand was ordered for the purpose of determining whether interim jury service occurred in other cases similar in fact and in legal issue or in cases in which the same government witnesses testified, as explicated in Mutchler... 569 F.2d at 263. 17 In Mobley, interim jury service occurred when certain jurors, after being selected in the defendant's case, served as jurors in a previously-tried narcotics case. The same undercover narcotics agent appeared as a principal prosecution witness in both trials. Both trials resulted in guilty verdicts. 18 In our opinion, Mutchler, Jefferson and Mobley stand for the proposition that jurors who have interim service on a convicting jury in a similar case, in which the government presented the testimony of the same prosecuting witnesses, may be challenged for the reason of implied bias. Having passed upon the credibility of witnesses in a similar case, and having rendered a verdict on their oaths, it is improbable that these jurors can sit without their previous opinion and verdict influencing them. This is the interim jury service prohibited by these cases. The record in this case shows that such service did not occur. 19 Those Brown jurors who underwent voir dire in other commissioner cases obviously did not have interim jury service prohibited by Mutchler, Jefferson and Mobley. During voir dire, they heard no evidence against any of the commissioners. They were not apprised of their legal defenses. They had no occasion to pass upon the credibility of government witnesses who later appeared in Brown's trial. Even though, as a result of voir dire, they may have had some knowledge about who might appear as witnesses in the other commissioner cases, they could not be sure who would have appeared, and certainly had no idea as to what their testimony would have been. It is certain that none of the Brown jurors had returned an interim verdict against another commissioner. 20 This same reasoning would apply to the jurors who, after being selected in Brown's case, sat in the courtroom during the government's voir dire of the jury panel in the Arnold case. It also applies to those three Brown jurors who were selected as jurors in both Brown's case and in Parish's case but who never served because of his guilty plea. 21 Brown argues, however, that because Parish's guilty plea established the credibility of government witnesses who later appeared against Brown, interim service was performed by the three Parish/Brown jurors. He contends that the issue of credibility of the common government witnesses is absolutely established when the plea is entered. We are unwilling to accept this contention. It ignores the fact that these jurors did not necessarily know which witnesses would have been called against Parish. It also ignores the fact that these jurors did not know what the witnesses would have said had they been called in Parish's case. Finally, it does not take into account that there was nothing before the jurors to indicate that Parish's defense to the charges was the same as Brown's. 1 22 Brown also seems to argue that the trial court erred when, after questioning the jurors as to whether they could be fair and impartial in view of the publicity surrounding the intervening guilty pleas by Reese and Parish, it failed to give a cautionary admonishment that such pleas should not be considered as any evidence of Brown's guilt. A cautionary admonishment to a juror who has just asserted that such publicity would have no effect on his fairness and impartiality would be redundant. Furthermore, in the case of a defendant who was not charged as a participant or a conspirator in the acts of individuals who entered pleas of guilty, we find no necessity for such an admonishment.