Opinion ID: 517394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jury coercion claim

Text: 3 In an indictment filed February 26, 1987, Dorsey and two co-defendants, Tyler Haynes and Thomas McDuffie, were each charged with conspiracy to manufacture PCP, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846, manufacture of more than 100 grams of PCP, id. Sec. 841(a)(1), and possession with intent to distribute more than 100 grams of PCP, id. Trial before a jury commenced on October 13, 1987, and on November 5 at 11:50 a.m., the jury retired to its deliberations. 4 The next day, Friday, November 6 at 3:56 p.m., the jury notified the court that it had reached a verdict. Upon the jury's return to the courtroom, the foreman reported that the jury had found Haynes and Dorsey guilty, but McDuffie not guilty, on all three counts. On request of counsel for Haynes and Dorsey, the court directed the clerk to poll the jurors. The first three jurors affirmed the guilty verdicts, but the following colloquy occurred with Juror No. 4: 5 THE DEPUTY CLERK: Juror No. 4, is your verdict as to Thomas E. Dorsey guilty of Count 1, guilty of Count 2, guilty of Count 3, and as to the defendant Tyler Haynes guilty of Count 1, guilty of Count 2, and guilty of Count 3? 6 JUROR NO. 4: No. 7 THE DEPUTY CLERK: Your verdict is-- 8 JUROR NO. 4: Guilty of conspiracy, not guilty on the 2 and 3. 9 The court immediately stopped the polling; after conferring with counsel at the bench, the judge denied mistrial motions by Haynes and Dorsey and instructed the jury: 10 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in polling the jury, it has become apparent that you may not yet have reached a unanimous verdict with respect to the defendants Haynes and Dorsey. For this reason, I am asking you to return to the juryroom for further consideration of your verdict. Whenever you have reached a unanimous verdict, you may return it in court. If you are not unanimous, then you should continue your deliberations. 11 After you return to the juryroom, any member is free to change his or her vote on any issue submitted to you. Each juror is free to change his or her vote until the jury is discharged. 12 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you would return to the juryroom to continue your deliberations in this case. 13 Upon receiving this instruction, at 4:42 p.m., the jury retired to resume deliberations. 14 Approximately an hour and a half later, the court advised counsel that the jury, by note, had requested to be excused for the weekend if a decision had not been reached by 6:30 p.m. The court brought the jury back to the courtroom, and informed the jurors that they could break and resume on Monday; alternatively, they could stay to continue deliberations, in which event arrangements would be made so they could move their cars and have dinner. Minutes after the jurors retired to confer among themselves, the foreman sent two notes to the court. One announced that the jury wanted to return on Monday. The other was from Juror No. 4; it read: 15 My name is Karen L. Kelly, Juror No. 4. I would like to know if I could be exchanged with one of the alternates. Because I cannot make an impartial decision without becoming emotionally involved. I feel that the government did not have a strong case with the evidence that was presented. I would like to please be excused because I do not want to be a part of the defendants livelyhood [sic] well being, (Going to Prison ). Please try to understand how I feel and I cannot take the arguing with the other decisions of the other jurors. I feel that I would be lying to myself to change my verdict just to have an unanimous decision. Thank you. Karen Kelly, Juror No. 4. 16 (Emphasis in original.) 17 Defense counsel renewed their mistrial motions, with Dorsey's attorney insisting that the jury was hopelessly hung. The court excused the jury until 10:00 a.m. Monday, November 9, and reserved decision on the motions. On the morning of the 9th, defense counsel, arguing in favor of a mistrial, urged that to require the jurors to continue deliberation has an increasingly coercive effect on Juror No. 4, Ms. Kelly. 18 The district judge denied the mistrial motions and comprehensively explained his reasons for opting to ask the jury to continue deliberations. First, he observed: 19 [A]ny time there is a poll of a jury, and a jur[or] at some point indicates that the juror's vote is different than the vote announced by the panel, that juror is somehow singled out. And yet, as we know, that is not necessarily grounds for a mistrial in the case. 20 Second, he referred to his specific instruction that any member is free to change his or her vote on any issue up to the time the jury is discharged. He additionally mentioned the length of the trial, the day and a half of deliberations prior to the weekend break, and the time the jurors had just had to step away from the case. Furthermore, he commented, one couldn't be sure all jurors save one had come to rest concerning the weight of the evidence on each count because we did not complete the poll. All things considered, he concluded, if the jurors continue their discussions, and they discuss whatever questions any of them may have, they may reach a verdict. 21 At that point, the judge invited proposals from counsel on a jury instruction. Both sides submitted suggestions. Eventually, all parties agreed on the following note, which was sent to the jury at 2:43 p.m.: 22 The jury is now deliberating its verdict and no juror can be exchanged at this point in the proceedings. Please continue your deliberations in this case. 23 At 5:18 p.m. the jury notified the court that a verdict had been reached. After the jury assembled in the courtroom, the foreman announced that Haynes and Dorsey had been found guilty on the conspiracy and manufacturing counts, and not guilty on the possession with intent to distribute count. A jury poll confirmed this verdict.
24 We start with the basic precepts. Any criminal defendant ... being tried by a jury is entitled to the uncoerced verdict of that body. Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 S.Ct. 546, 552, 98 L.Ed.2d 568 (1988). This court has elaborated: Every defendant in a federal criminal case has the right to have his guilt found, if at all, only by the unanimous verdict of a jury of his peers. Any undue intrusion by the trial judge into this exclusive province of the jury is error of the first magnitude. United States v. Thomas, 449 F.2d 1177, 1181 (D.C.Cir.1971) (en banc) (footnote omitted). 25 Whether a trial court's statement to the jury should be regarded as coercing the surrender of views conscientiously held is an issue appellate judges should evaluate in its context and under all the circumstances. Jenkins v. United States, 380 U.S. 445, 446, 85 S.Ct. 1059, 1060, 13 L.Ed.2d 957 (1965). Two types of trial court intervention have caused particular concern: the so-called Allen charge, and inquiry into the jury's numerical division for or against conviction. 26 The charge that received Supreme Court approbation close to a century ago in Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501, 17 S.Ct. 154, 157, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896), included the statement that if much the larger number [of jurors] were for conviction, a dissenting juror should consider whether his doubt was a reasonable one which made no impression upon the minds of so many men, equally honest, equally intelligent with himself. The Allen charge), has been questioned or resisted in recent decades. See, e.g., United States v. Rey, 811 F.2d 1453, 1458 (11th Cir.) (modern judicial trend disfavors Allen charge) cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 103, 98 L.Ed.2d 63 (1987). In Thomas, 449 F.2d 1177, this court exercised its supervisory power over the administration of the law in this circuit to require trial judges to use in place of the problematic Allen charge, a milder form of supplemental instruction endorsed by the American Bar Association: 27 The verdict must represent the considered judgment of each juror. In order to return a verdict, it is necessary that each juror agree thereto. Your verdict must be unanimous. 28 It is your duty, as jurors, to consult with one another and to deliberate with a view to reaching an agreement, if you can do so without violence to individual judgment. Each of you must decide the case for yourself, but do so only after an impartial consideration of the evidence with your fellow jurors. In the course of your deliberations, do not hesitate to reexamine your own views and change your opinion if convinced it is erroneous. But do not surrender your honest conviction as to the weight or effect of evidence solely because of the opinion of your fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict. 29 You are not partisans. You are judges--judges of the facts. Your sole interest is to ascertain the truth from the evidence in the case. 30 Id. at 1184-86 & n. 46; Instruction 2.91, Alternative A, YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION, BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 107 (3d ed. 1978). 31 Inquiry into a stalled jury's numerical division on the merits of conviction is improper; the Supreme Court so declared in an exercise of its supervisory powers in Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345 (1926). Such inquiries, the Court reasoned, are generally coercive and serve no useful purpose that cannot be attained by questions not requiring the jury to reveal the nature or extent of its division. Id. at 450, 47 S.Ct. at 135; cf. Mullin v. United States, 356 F.2d 368 (D.C.Cir.1966) (trial judge did not abuse his discretion when he granted mistrial following jury's unsolicited disclosure of 7-4-1 division in favor of conviction; hence second trial resulting in conviction did not violate double jeopardy clause of fifth amendment). 32 In its most recent expression in point, Lowenfield v. Phelps, 108 S.Ct. at 550-52, however, the Supreme Court held noncoercive, in the context of a capital sentencing proceeding, a supplemental charge of a modified Allen cast, coupled with an inquiry into the jury's numerical division on whether further deliberations might assist the jurors in returning a verdict. 33 Turning to Dorsey's case, we are satisfied that the record shows no improper coercion within the purview of governing precedent. First, the poll when the jury initially returned to report a verdict was prompted by the defendants themselves. See United States v. Brooks, 420 F.2d 1350, 1354 (D.C.Cir.1969) (despite tendency to isolate dissenting jurors, polling has long been regarded as a 'useful' and necessary device for preserving the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict). Second, the supplemental instructions after Juror No. 4 spoke were not of the Allen type. The trial judge's response was authorized by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(d) which provides: 34 Poll of Jury. When a verdict is returned and before it is recorded the jury shall be polled at the request of any party or upon the court's own motion. If upon the poll there is not unanimous concurrence, the jury may be directed to retire for further deliberations or may be discharged. 35 The language used by the judge, furthermore, tracked almost exactly the instruction prescribed for aborted jury polls by Instruction 2.93, CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS, supra at 111. 36 Over the weekend pause in the jury's deliberations, the trial judge carefully reviewed our decision in United States v. Brown, 823 F.2d 591 (D.C.Cir.1987), and was dominantly guided by that opinion. He declined to discharge Ms. Kelly based on the poll, 1 for she had indicated uncertainty about the strength of the evidence. In Brown, we directed that a juror may not be discharged when the record reveals a possibility that the juror believes that the government has failed to present sufficient evidence to support a conviction. Id. at 597. Instead, to safeguard the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict, we directed that the judge must either declare a mistrial or send the jury back to deliberations with instructions that the jury continue to attempt to reach agreement. Id. at 596. The latter course is the one the trial judge took and, in the circumstances presented, it was surely within his discretion to do so. 37 It bears emphasis that the jury never reported itself deadlocked and that the initial deliberations had run not much more than one day following a multi-count trial proceeding against three defendants that had consumed close to four weeks. We underscore too that the court, with commendable attentiveness, framed a sensible and concise response, after consultation with counsel, to Juror Kelly's request to be excused. See supra p. 1277. That response contained no words of pressure. Cf. Jenkins, 380 U.S. at 446, 85 S.Ct. at 1060 (where jury indicated doubts on sufficiency of evidence, it was coercive for judge to instruct: You have got to reach a decision in this case.). 38 We appreciate that jury deliberations can be difficult for individual jurors, as the deliberations in this case were for Juror Kelly. Cf. United States v. O'Brien, 609 F.2d 895, 896 (8th Cir.1979) (upholding trial judge's denial of mistrial where juror, in the midst of deliberations, asked to be removed stating in a note that his decision would not be fair to the U.S. people or the defendant), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 961, 100 S.Ct. 1646, 64 L.Ed.2d 235 (1980). We note, however, that individual jurors have no right to be released or relieved from their colleagues' efforts at persuasion. By permitting the jury here to continue deliberations the trial court stayed within reasonable limits and fulfilled its charge faithfully to the parties and to the larger community our system of justice serves. Dorsey's right to an impartial, unanimous verdict was not denied. 39