Opinion ID: 152284
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does the Error Require a New Trial?

Text: Jadlowe argues that the court's instruction resulted in the denial of his due process rights and his right to a fair trial, and that it should be considered structural error requiring reversal without a showing of prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. 2159, 2164 (2010) (describing structural errors as a very limited class of errors that affect the framework within which the trial proceeds (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); Neder, 527 U.S. at 8. He further contends that, even if the error is not deemed structural, a new trial is necessary because the government is unable to prove the absence of prejudice from the instruction. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 7 (noting that most constitutional errors may be disregarded where they are harmless 'beyond a reasonable doubt' (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967)); United States v. Carpenter, 403 F.3d 9, 11-12 (1st Cir. 2005). The question in identifying structural error is whether the error affects the 'framework' of the trial, 'rather than 31 Although this case does not require us to impose an affirmative requirement that courts tell jurors not to discuss the case until deliberations formally begin, such an instruction is unquestionably the better practice. -33- simply . . . the trial process itself.' Neder, 527 U.S. at 8 (quoting Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 310 (1991)). In such instances, it is often 'difficul[t]' to 'asses[s] the effect of the error,' Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2165 (quoting United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 149 n.4 (2006)), because the nature of a structural error is to produce[] 'consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate,' Neder, 527 U.S. at 11 (quoting Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 282 (1993)). The frequently cited examples of such errors include the complete denial of counsel, a biased presiding judge, the denial of a public trial, and a defective instruction on reasonable doubt. Id. at 8; see also, e.g., United States v. Curbelo, 343 F.3d 273, 281 (4th Cir. 2003) (concluding that trial court's decision to proceed with an eleven-person jury, over defendant's objection, was structural error requiring reversal). In the Supreme Court cases finding structural error, the errors themselves effected a deprivation of rights, so that [n]o additional showing of prejudice is required to make the violation 'complete.' Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. at 146. The Court explained that characteristic of structural error in Gonzalez-Lopez, where it contrasted denial of a criminal defendant's choice of counsel – which it held to be structural error – from denial of the Sixth Amendment right to effective representation of counsel – which requires an additional showing of prejudice. Id. at 147-48. -34- Deprivation of the right of choice is 'complete,' the Court explained, when the defendant is erroneously prevented from being represented by the lawyer he wants, regardless of the quality of the representation he received. Id. at 148. By contrast, violation of the right to effective counsel depends on the competence of whatever lawyer is chosen or appointed. Id. The type of error at issue here has framework implications. If the court's faulty instruction results in early discussion of the evidence or witnesses by the jurors, their later deliberations may be prejudiced in ways that would be difficult to identify or quantify. The jury's deliberative process – the collective, objective review of the evidence of record, evaluated as a whole, and guided by the court's closing instructions – may be compromised as a result of prematurely formed impressions. That potential harm is unlike the erroneous introduction of a piece of evidence or a flawed instruction that misstates or omits an element of the crime. Such errors are discrete trial events whose effect on the outcome of the trial may be evaluated in light of the properly admitted evidence or the instruction as a whole. By contrast, premature discussion raises the possibility that the jurors will view all of the evidence through a distorted lens, much like what occurs when the jury is improperly instructed on reasonable doubt. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 10-11 (noting that a flawed reasonable doubt instruction is not subject to harmless- -35- error analysis because it 'vitiates all the jury's findings' (quoting Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 281)). Where the possibility exists that premature jury discussions shifted to the defendant the burden of changing by evidence the opinion thus formed, Winebrenner, 147 F.2d at 328, the possibility exists that the trial was an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence, Neder, 527 U.S. at 9. Yet, the error here differs in a significant way from those the Supreme Court has labeled structural. Although the instruction opens the door to discussion taint[ing] the process by which guilt [is] determined, Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 285, the defendant will not necessarily be denied a fair trial as a result of the error. Despite the instruction, juror discussion may not take place at all and, even if some preliminary conversation about the case occurs, it may be tangential to the jurors' determination of guilt or innocence. Unlike the complete denial of counsel or a public trial, for example, the harm triggered by the flawed instruction does not occur – i.e., the constitutional violation is not complete – until prejudicial discussion occurs. It is not necessarily the case, therefore, that all or almost all such errors always 'affec[t] the framework within which the trial proceeds,' or 'necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair.' Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2166 (quoting Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 310, and Neder, 527 U.S. at 9). -36- Jadlowe contends that the error must nonetheless be considered structural because a defendant would never be able to probe the jury's deliberations to prove prejudice. Inquiries into jury deliberations are, in fact, narrowly restricted by Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which bars juror testimony as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations. The relevant inquiry, however, is not into the nature of the formal deliberations that occurred once the presentation of evidence concluded, but the nature of any juror discussion about the case prior to the formal deliberations. Probing such premature discussions is neither impermissible nor impossible. Indeed, courts routinely examine allegations of juror misconduct involving improper external influences and communications among jurors, and we see no relevant distinction between those contexts and this one. The threshold question would be whether any premature discussion took place. If so, was it among all jurors or just a few? Did discussion occur regularly through the proceedings, or only once – and at what point? What was the content of the discussion? We thus conclude that Supreme Court precedent insist[s] upon a showing of individual prejudice when a court improperly instructs jurors in a criminal case that they may discuss the evidence before formal deliberations commence. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2166. Indeed, although the practice remains rare, -37- the authorization of jury discussion in criminal cases by some courts and the Arizona Supreme Court Committee's recommendation that it be permitted in both civil and criminal trials reinforce our conclusion that the instruction here should not be classified as structural error requiring automatic reversal of the defendant's conviction. See supra nn. 25, 26 & related text; cf. Resko, 3 F.3d at 695 ([W]e are unwilling to assume the existence of prejudice because we are far less certain that premature deliberations will lead to prejudice in every, or nearly every, instance.); United States v. Cruz, 156 F.3d 22, 28 (1st Cir. 1998) (upholding as adequate remedy the dismissal of three jurors who were heard discussing the case during a recess).
When a defendant properly preserves an objection to a trial error, the government bears the burden of proving that the error was harmless. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993); Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 278; United States v. Colón-Muñoz, 192 F.3d 210, 222 (1st Cir. 1999). For most constitutional errors, the government must show that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24, and for most nonconstitutional errors, the government must show that the error did not have a 'substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict,' Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 278 (quoting -38- Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946)). As we shall explain, we need not decide which of these standards applies here. Neither the government nor the defendant asked the court to question the jurors before they commenced formal deliberations about whether they had discussed any aspect of the case during the five days of trial proceedings. The record is therefore silent on that question. If we were to conclude that the defendant preserved his objection to the erroneous instruction simply by objecting to it, we could conclude that the government failed to meet its burden to show harmless error based simply on the absence of evidence that the jurors did not discuss the case. We decline, however, to adopt that approach and to take the serious step of ordering a new trial without any evidence in the record that the jurors engaged in improper discussions. The court gave the jurors permission to talk about the case, but it did not tell them to do so.32 In our view, to justify a new trial based 32 We recognize that one reason given for reconsidering the bar against allowing jurors to discuss the case as the trial proceeds is that the system needs to recognize reality – jurors talk. N.D. Sup. Ct. Joint Proc. Comm., Minutes, at 11; see also Juror Discussions During Civil Trials, 45 Ariz. L. Rev. at 10 (Because jurors find it difficult to adhere to an admonition not to discuss evidence, permission to engage in such discussions bridges the gap between the court's admonitions about forming premature judgments and juror behavior.); United States v. Klee, 494 F.2d 394, 396 (9th Cir. 1974) (quoting the dissent's observation in Winebrenner that '[n]o normal honest Americans ever worked together in a common inquiry for any length of time with their mouths sealed up like automatons or oysters.'). Even accepting that jurors advised that they may discuss the case ordinarily will do so, we decline to assume that they will have done so in every case. -39- on prejudicial juror discussion, the defendant must make some showing that the improper conduct in fact arose. The defendant could, for example, ask the trial judge to inquire of the jurors whether any premature discussions had taken place. If the court's questioning reveals that such discussion occurred, the government would bear the burden of proving that it was not prejudicial. Even if the court refuses to make the inquiry, the defendant will have preserved his objection to the instruction by making the request, and the government would have the burden of showing the absence of prejudice. The silent record would in that situation mean the government could not satisfy its burden, and a new trial would be necessary. In effect, we conclude that a standard analogous to plain error applies when a defendant claims he was denied a fair trial based on an instruction allowing improper jury discussion, but has failed to show that any discussion took place. This approach does not diminish the importance of objecting in the first instance to the instruction that made such conduct permissible. The objection ensures that the burden will be on the government to defend the integrity of the jury's deliberative process when the defendant also shows, or makes an effort to show, that premature discussion in fact occurred. In our view, this approach reaches an appropriate balance between 'society's interest in punishing the guilty [and] the method by which decisions of guilt are to be -40- made.' Neder, 527 U.S. at 18 (quoting Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U.S. 73, 86 (1983) (plurality opinion)).33 Here, the defendant has shown only that the court erred in telling the jurors that they could discuss the case among themselves before formal deliberations began. Because the defendant did not also show that any such discussions took place, he cannot show that prejudicial predeliberations discussion occurred. He is therefore not entitled to a new trial on that basis.