Opinion ID: 1143715
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: issue ii: error to limit the extent of defense investigation into the alleged jury tampering

Text: After a claim of a fixed jury arose at trial, defendant attempted to probe the jury status to establish or disprove those allegations. The trial court confined defense counsel's examination to events occurring during trial and before commencement of deliberations, in denying inquiry which could reach the substance of the corroborating information furnished in interview by the jury foreman. The trial court decision now supported by this court is based on a misconception that Rule 606(b), W.R.E., exists as a complete barrier to all inquiries which open to view jury prejudice beyond the deliberation session as specifically excluded from examination. I disagree in that Rule 606(b) allows an exception  where the inquiry proceeds from a substantial allegation that a juror lied during voir dire. After stating:    Where the comments indicate that the juror had preconceived notions of liability or guilt or personal knowledge about the facts in issue, the statements may be admissible not because they are not prohibited by Rule 606(b), but as tending to prove that the juror lied on the voir dire   . 3 Weinstein, § 606[04], p. 606-33 (1985), Weinstein further states: Wigmore would prohibit all disclosure  except where the proof is offered in connection with a showing that the juror had lied on the voir dire in failing to indicate bias   . Id. at 606-34. The problem considered here arose during the course of the trial when a person anonymously, but later identified as Michael Evans, called the office of the Public Defender about prejudicial influence of decedent's family with two jurors, including one who was his grandmother. My examination of the record does not accord with the conclusion of this court that: The only restriction placed on appellant in his questioning of witnesses at the hearing on a motion for new trial were strictures specifically provided for in Rule 606(b), W.R.E. Otherwise, he was given wide latitude. Rule 606(b) only justifies examination denial of occurrence during deliberations, and clearly affords no restriction on retesting accuracy of initial voir-dire answers.    Moreover, where comments indicate prejudice or preconceived notions of guilt, statements may be admissible not under F.R.E. 606(b) but because they may prove that a juror lied during the voir dire.    Such evidence can be used to show that a juror should be disqualified by his prejudice and that the verdict in which he participated was a nullity. (Emphasis added.) Tobias v. Smith, 468 F. Supp. 1287, 1290 (W.D.N.Y. 1979). The actual restriction was circumscribed by the trial court at the commencement of the new-trial motion hearing: THE COURT: Very well. You say you understand the guidelines. It's my understanding  and so we all have the same understanding  that all we're concerned about is to ask jurors whether or not, after they were chosen and selected in this case, whether they had any outside contact with anyone prior to reaching their verdict, and not about their deliberations or what they thought of or talked about or felt during their deliberations. The premise for confinement of examination of the jurors to events occurring during trial is not established by this record. Obviously if the decedent's family, and particularly the father, had influence with the two jurors, the basis would predate trial commencement and would have existed when the initial voir-dire examination occurred, as evidenced in questioning Juror K as one of the two named by the informant: MR. CARROLL [Prosecuting Attorney]: Mrs. K, do you know anything about this case except what you have heard here in the courtroom? MS. K: Just what I have heard in the courtroom.   . MR. CARROLL: And is there anything that you want to tell any of us that would have a bearing on your ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror in this case? MS. K: No.       MS. K: No, I just recognize the victim's brother sitting over there. I just know who he is through a friend. MR. CARROLL: You say you recognize him? MS. K: Yeah, I just know him through someone as an acquaintance, a casual one. MR. CARROLL: Have you had any social or business relationship with him? MS. K: No, I just know who he is, and similar inquiry of informant's grandmother, Juror G: MR. CARROLL:    And, Mrs. G, do you know anything about this case except what you have heard here in the courtroom? MS. G: No.       MS. G: No, I have seen the father but  I don't know him personally. MR. CARROLL: Do you know Mr. Gregorio, you have seen him? MS. G: I have seen him but I don't know him personally.       MR. CARROLL: And is there anything I should have asked you that I have not that would bear on your ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror? MS. G: No, I don't think so. Again, we are faced with the age-old dilemma of being ignorant as judges of what we know as persons: (1) a juror's grandson anonymously called the Public Defender twice with contention of a fixed jury; (2) after trial, counsel for defendant interviewed the foreman of the jury, obtaining conjecturally corroborating information; and (3) pure coincidence without causative rationale is an anathema to the laws of nature. I would not confine inquiry of the defense merely to the scope permitted by the trial court, particularly so since limitation is not justified by the test of Rule 606(b), W.R.E. Exclusion of the substance of deliberations after the jury started verbal consideration is considerably more confined than was the examination preclusion actually effected. Particularly of concern, although not clearly defined in this record, is the afforded opportunity for further examination post-trial, to determine whether initial voir dire was intentionally or unintentionally false. Additionally, I see little justification for denying the court's consideration of the testimony of the foreman of the jury about the substance of the information which he had furnished to counsel for defendant in post-trial interview in order to determine the initial fairness and reliability of the two women jurors and the accuracy of the answers given on initial voir dire. I find a difference between an initial determinative posture and later positions and discussion adopted during the deliberative session. [1] Furthermore, a curious dichotomy is formulated by this opinion. The court would describe Evans as unworthy of belief as a convicted felon. Because prosecutors often embrace convicted felons as reliable witnesses, the jury is entitled to know that the state's witnesses are convicted felons, State v. Ross, 104 N.M. 23, 715 P.2d 471, 475 (1986), I find greater significance in Evans being the grandson of one of the two subject jurors as logical support for possible knowledge. Necessary to the court's thinking is the conception that a person's past criminal status always serves to predict the value of that person's continuing actions. Oddly enough, this notion is then abandoned completely in Issue IV where this court approves the exclusion of the decedent's past arrest record when offered by the defendant to prove pertinent traits of the victim. If the status of being a convicted felon deters believability, the officers of the Wyoming Bar Association must be hard-pressed to explain successfully the reported $5,000 price tag in inviting the ex-convict, G. Gordon Liddy, to speak at its annual convention. Recognizing that we are not intruding within the strictures of Rule 606(b), but only in the general area of the exercise of discretion, the guidelines were, in my interest-of-justice analysis, far too confined. Because I would reverse and remand for retrial on the basis of the remaining issues and so would not anticipate this particular problem to arise again with a fresh jury, my dissent on this issue will not be expanded, except to note that in jury tampering cases, the inquiry, where the allegations prove to be true, does not end there, however, because not every incident of juror misconduct or bias requires a new trial. United States v. Hendrix, 549 F.2d 1225, 1229, cert. denied 434 U.S. 818, 98 S.Ct. 58, 54 L.Ed.2d 74, reh. denied 434 U.S. 960, 98 S.Ct. 493, 54 L.Ed.2d 321 (1977). But [i]f only one juror is unduly biased or prejudiced or improperly influenced, the criminal defendant is denied his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial panel. Id. at 1227.