Opinion ID: 1237353
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court's Declaration of a Mistrial

Text: A court may declare a mistrial if it determines that such a declaration is occasioned by manifest necessity. Combs, 222 F.3d at 358-59. Such a determination is proper with or without the defendant's consent, see id., and need not be made explicitly, see Camden v. Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit, 892 F.2d 610, 614 (7th Cir.1989). A mistrial is manifestly necessary only if the scrupulous exercise of judicial discretion leads to the conclusion that the ends of public justice would not be served by a continuation of the proceedings. Id. (quotations omitted). We review a court's decision to declare a mistrial for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Vaiseta, 333 F.3d 815, 818 (7th Cir.2003). Our review becomes even more deferential in a situation such as this, where the manifest necessity prompting the mistrial is a deadlocked jury. See id.; see also Washington, 434 U.S. at 509, 98 S.Ct. 824; Williams v. Bartow, 481 F.3d 492, 500 (7th Cir.2007) (noting that the reviewing court applies varying degrees of scrutiny within the abuse-of-discretion standard depending on the events precipitating the mistrial). Such deference is warranted because the trial judge is in the best position to balance the defendant's interest in having a given jury decide his fate against the public's interest in fair trials and just judgments. Vaiseta, 333 F.3d at 818. In Vaiseta, we discussed several factors a court should consider before declaring a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury: (1) statements from the jury that it cannot agree; (2) length of the deliberations; (3) length of the trial; (4) complexity of the issues; (5) the jury's communications to the judge; and (6) the potentially prejudicial impact of continued forced deliberations. Id. Here, although the court never explicitly stated that it found the mistrial to be of manifest necessity, the court clearly contemplated each of the Vaiseta factors before it declared a mistrial, a decision that we conclude was well within the bounds of the court's discretion. First, the court had two written statements from the jury indicating its inability to agree, one on June 20, the second on June 21. Second, the court discussed both the length of the presentation of evidence and the length of the deliberations, noting that the evidence had taken approximately six hours and that the jury deliberations had been ongoing for ten hours. Said the judge: Just seems like with six hours of testimony, with over ten hours, thereabouts, of deliberation, that we're not going to get a different result. Third, the judge expressed his opinion that the single issue facing the jury  whether Taylor had knowingly possessed the gun  was relatively simple. Next, the jury's communications made clear that it had made little progress in three days; in fact, the jury's split had not changed since it began deliberating. And finally, the judge explained his fear of coercing the jury into a decision by requiring further deliberations. The judge discussed each of these factors on the record before announcing his decision to declare the mistrial. We fail to see how such a measured decision, made with ample information and full appreciation for the Vaiseta factors, could be an abuse of discretion. Cf. United States v. Jackson, 546 F.3d 465, 471 (7th Cir.2008) (noting that a judge must exercise his discretion, i.e., consider[] the factors relevant to that exercise, before we accord his decision deference). On appeal, Taylor essentially asks us to substitute our judgment for that of the district judge. He suggests, for example, that the issue was not as simple as the court believed and that the length of deliberations was not out of proportion to the length of the evidence. Taylor argues that the court should have ordered the jury to deliberate at least until lunch and should have reread the Silvern instruction, see United States v. Silvern, 484 F.2d 879, 883 (7th Cir.1973), [1] an instruction that we have held to be content-neutral and non-coercive, United States v. Sanders, 962 F.2d 660, 676 (7th Cir.1992) (quoting United States v. Beverly, 913 F.2d 337, 352 (7th Cir.1990)). But when reviewing only for an abuse of discretion, second-guessing the district court is something we will not do. See Am. Nat'l Bank & Trust Co. of Chi. v. Reg'l Transp. Auth., 125 F.3d 420, 431 (7th Cir.1997). A discretionary decision, as this one was, implies a range of acceptable outcomes. See United States v. Koen, 982 F.2d 1101, 1114 (7th Cir.1992). So long as the judge's conclusion was within that range of outcomes, we will defer to his judgment, not substitute our own. See id.; see also United States v. Souffront, 338 F.3d 809, 819 (7th Cir.2003) (stating that when reviewing for an abuse of discretion, this court will not second-guess the trial judge's decision or reweigh the evidence). Further, even if we were to conduct a more searching analysis of the court's conclusions, we see no fault in the decision it reached. As such, we hold that the district court's decision to declare a mistrial during Taylor's first jury trial was not an abuse of discretion. We turn now to Taylor's ineffective assistance of counsel claim.