Opinion ID: 1890466
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Charging a Deadlocked Jury

Text: The defendants argue that the supplemental Allen [5] instructions (supplemental instructions) given to the deadlocked jury were improper for three reasons: (1) the trial justice put too much emphasis on the possibility and cost of a retrial; (2) the nature of the instructions was too coercive given the fact that only one juror was dissenting from the majority; (3) the trial just should have revealed the numerical split. In reviewing challenges to an Allen charge, this Court applies a totality-of-the-circumstances test. State v. Rodriguez, 822 A.2d 894, 900 (R.I.2003). In State v. Patriarca, 112 R.I. 14, 53, 308 A.2d 300, 322 (1973), we looked to the A.B.A. Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Trial by Jury, § 5.4(a) and (b) (approved draft 1968), for guidance in analyzing Allen and in instructing a deadlocked jury. That section provides that before deliberation the court may instruct the jury: (1) that in order to return a verdict, each juror must agree thereto; (2) that jurors have a duty to consult with one another and to deliberate with a view to reaching an agreement, if it can be done without violence to individual judgment; (3) that each juror must decide the case for himself, but only after an impartial consideration of the evidence with his fellow jurors; (4) that in the course of deliberations, a juror should not hesitate to re-examine his own views and change his opinion if convinced it is erroneous; and (5) that no juror should surrender his honest conviction as to the weight or effect of the evidence solely because of the opinion of his fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict. Patriarca, 112 R.I. at 53, 308 A.2d at 322. When the jurors sent a note informing the trial justice that they were deadlocked ten to one and inquiring what they should do, the trial justice issued straightforward instructions that covered, in almost the same words, the scope of the instructions suggested by Patriarca. In addition, she added: It seems to me that no other jury is going to be more qualified than you are. It isn't that on the next go-round better jurors are going to sit. You are qualified.    And, if it has to be retried, it will be retried at great expense to the state and great expense to the defendants. As I've told you, it is your duty to decide the case if you can conscientiously do so. (Emphasis added.) Neither party specifically objected to these instructions but defendants moved to pass the case immediately after the trial justice issued the supplemental instructions. Shortly after the jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts, the trial justice herself impeached her decision not to read the entire note to the parties and questioned her instructions as a result. After informing counsel of the ten-to-one deadlock, [6] the trial justice advised that: I thought it best not to talk numbers to you when I told you about this note and told you that I wanted to re-instruct the jury. It may very well have been I should have. I don't know how you would have read it. Either side. It may have affected your strategy, and I will not ask you to discuss it with me, but just to think about it. You may have had stronger objections to the so-called Allen charge which I gave. If you knew about the ten to one breakout, you may have indeed pressed for a mistrial, or at least a decision from me, and I didn't give you a decision on the motion for mistrial. And I may very well have been in error in not deciding. But in any event, I thought you should know. At the first post-trial hearing, defendants strongly argued that the supplemental instructions were improper in light of the fact that one holdout was dissenting from the rest of the jurors at the time the supplemental instructions were issued. We will not hold against defendants their failure to object to the supplemental instructions at the time they were issued  after the trial justice expressly stated that she would not reveal the numerical split. We are satisfied that as soon as defendants had knowledge of the split, they asserted their objections just as the trial justice had speculated they would. Because a de facto objection was made as soon as defendants became aware of the circumstances surrounding the instructions, and counsel already had moved to pass the case at the time the supplemental instructions were issued, we will now consider defendants' arguments concerning the supplemental instructions. First, we hold that the trial justice committed reversible error by informing counsel that she was not willing to reveal the numerical split that was disclosed in the jury's note. Although this issue is before us for the first time, we have held that a trial justice erred when he responded to a jury's note outside the presence of the criminal defendant's counsel because defense counsel had a right to be heard before a response was given to the note. State v. Sciarra, 448 A.2d 1215, 1220 (R.I.1982). To ensure that defense counsel has sufficient opportunity to be heard before a response is given to the jury's note, it is imperative that the entire contents of the note be revealed. The facts below demonstrate the problems that can occur when counsel is not privy to all the information available to the trial justice. As the trial justice acknowledged, had defense counsel been aware that only one juror was dissenting from the rest, defendants would have objected to the offending portions of the supplemental instructions and pressed for a mistrial. This did not occur, however, and for the reasons stated herein defendants' motion to pass this case should have been granted. The defendants argue that the supplemental instructions were needlessly coercive in suggesting that a retrial was both imminent and a waste of time and money, and that the jury should work towards a unanimous verdict. In Rodriguez, 822 A.2d at 899, 903, the jurors notified the trial justice that they were split eleven to one in favor of convicting the defendant and were not sure how to proceed. [7] After the trial justice issued supplemental instructions, the jury returned a guilty verdict and the defendant appealed claiming, among other things, that the instructions to the deadlocked jury were coercive in light of the split revealed to the trial justice. Id. at 901-03. After reviewing the totality of the circumstances, we concluded that the instructions were not coercive because the numerical split revealed by the jury was unsolicited; the instructions were not addressed to either the majority or minority; it still took the jury an hour after the instructions were issued to reach a verdict; the jury specifically had asked for the trial justice's advice; and the trial justice did not tell the jurors that the case would have to be retried if they failed to reach a unanimous conclusion. Id. at 902-04. Here, the trial justice informed the jury that the case would have to be retried at great expense to the state and defendants if a unanimous verdict was not reached. Although retrial was a likely consequence, the trial justice should not have commented on the inconvenience or cost of such an outcome, particularly when, as she noted, the jury had not been in deliberations for that long and all but one juror agreed on a verdict. It is inescapable that the only holdout juror knew that the trial justice was aware of the numerical split, and that the remaining ten jurors knew of the split and knew that the trial justice was aware of the split. Standing alone, this information is enough to require a judge to notify counsel how the jury was divided. In addition, even if the trial justice did not specifically single out the only dissenter, her instructions, coupled with the knowledge of the single holdout, took on a new meaning. When all the factors surrounding the supplemental instructions are considered together, we hold that the trial justice impermissibly exceeded the boundaries set in Patriarca. The defendants' motion to pass the case should have been granted. Because we find that the trial justice erred by failing to reveal the contents of the note in its entirety and by instructing the jury that retrial was both imminent and costly, we reverse her decision denying defendants' motion to pass the case.