Opinion ID: 280900
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Separation of Jurors

Text: 33 Next it is urged that it was reversible error for the district court to allow the jurors to separate overnight after they had begun their deliberations. No objection was made at the time but appellant says that he could not have done so in the presence of the jurors without incurring their prejudice. A general objection was made the following morning without suggestion that there had been actual prejudice in any specific way. 34 A review of the record here shows no suggestion of prejudice whatsover by this procedure, nor is there any reason advanced why an objection could not have been made in the absence of the jury. Assuming, arguendo, that a timely objection had been made there still is nothing to suggest that the trial court would have abused its discretion by overruling it. Appellant concedes that the trial court has broad discretion to allow the jurors to separate during the course of the trial and prior to the submission of the case to them for deliberation, but urges that jurors in criminal cases may not be dispersed, as a matter of the court's discretion or otherwise without the accused's consent, at any time after submission of the case to them until finally discharged. This is advanced as a proposition stemming from the Fifth Amendment and one which sweeps away all necessity for any factual showing or suggestion of actual or implied prejudice to the defendant on trial. Appellant states the court may not prejudice his right to a verdict by placing the jurors in a position of comfort whereby their deliberations may be looked on in a different light the next day. 35 To fashion an inflexible rule as urged here would in our judgment be at least as likely to create potentially prejudicial situations as to cure them. There are indeed countless circumstances when jurors should be sequestered. To catalogue these many splendored variables would be endless — and totally unproductive. The more obvious ones relate to the danger of adverse publicity. In many situations it is not difficult to recognize that defendant's right to a fair trial has been actually prejudiced where facts are shown. To presume without an inference of factual prejudice that a recess of the jurors, at any particular point, operates as a matter of law to the prejudice of the defendant is logically untenable. There is much to be said for the view that jurors, even as judges, are more likely to perform their duty fairly and correctly when they are not subjected to extended periods of arbitrary and pointless personal confinement. Mr. Justice Holmes commenting in 1910 on the general role of jurors said in Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 249, 31 S.Ct. 2, 5, 54 L.Ed. 1021,    there is force in the judge's view that if juries are fit to play the part assigned to them by our law, they will be able to do what a judge has to do every time that he tries a case on the facts without them, and we cannot say that he was wrong in thinking that the men before him were competent for their task. 36 There is no factual showing of prejudice here, nor is any suggested by inference or otherwise. Nor can we raise the demand for sequestration of a jury after submission to the level of a Constitutional sine qua non. There are widely divergent practices and procedures with respect to the goings and comings of jurors within our federal system and, for that matter, among the various states, and there does not appear to be any compelling reason to freeze this aspect of jury service into rigid or ritualistic uniformity. 37 Some of these procedural matters have been subject of specific legislation, and others have developed through individual court rule or practice. The Seventh Circuit has set rather stringent restrictions on the separation of jurors after deliberations have begun in its opinions in United States v. D'Antonio, 342 F.2d 667 (1965), and United States v. Panczko, 353 F.2d 676 (1965). Even the majority of the court in these cases, however, recognized that there are some circumstances which allow for the exercise of judicial discretion by distinguishing, and not overruling, that court's prior opinion in Lucas v. United States, 275 F. 405 (10th Cir. 1921), where lack of suitable quarters for jurors, coupled with appropriate instruction of the court, combined to make the separation permissible. This rigid rule of sequestration of jurors follows the Massachusetts' view as expressed in Commonwealth v. Della Porta, 324 Mass. 193, 85 N.E.2d 248 (1949), but whatever its historical origin it has not had wide acceptance. As noted in Judge Swygert's dissent in D'Antonio, supra, 38 Moreover, separation of the jury during deliberation of its verdict and separation during the course of the trial are not logically distinguishable. If jurors are apt to be influenced by outside contacts during periods when they are separated while deliberating, they are equally apt to be influenced by those contacts during the trial. The protection against such evil ordinarily is provided by an admonition from the judge and by an adherence to the admonition by conscientious jurors. When circumstances demand, confinement should be ordered. This, however, is a matter that ought to be left to the sound judgment of the trial judge. 39 This Court has aligned itself with the predominant view as expressed most recently in Grant v. United States, 368 F.2d 658 (5th Cir., 1966), that juries may be dispersed in the discretion of the trial judge, and absent a showing of actual prejudice its exercise of that discretion will not be overturned. See also Estes v. United States, 335 F.2d 609, 615 (5th Cir. 1964), cert. den. 379 U.S. 964, 85 S.Ct. 656, 13 L.Ed.2d 559, rehearing den. 380 U.S. 926, 85 S.Ct. 884, 13 L.Ed. 2d 814. 40 Judge Bell, speaking for the Court in Grant, supra, noted: 41 There is likewise no merit in the contention that the court erred in allowing the jury to separate after submission of the case. There was no objection to the procedure. There is no suggestion of prejudice from the separation. 42 The case under consideration here virtually parallels the facts and requires the same result as Grant, supra. There are two differences. Here defense counsel did object but not until the morning after dispersal and, secondly, the jury had already reached, before dispersal, what was ultimately its final verdict. 43 The failure to make timely objection to the dispersal in the jury's presence is also answered in Grant where it was stated at 660 of 368 F.2d: 44    It is no answer to say that it would have prejudiced his case to object in the presence of the jury at the time separation was permitted. Objection could have been made out of the hearing of the jury without the problem of prejudice arising. 45 Even where there was a specific objection concerning newspaper and radio reports (not present here) the Eighth Circuit recently reached a similar conclusion in Cardarella v. United States, 375 F.2d 222, 227: 46 The jury failed to reach a verdict after two hours of deliberation on the day the case was submitted and was excused until the following morning. None of the defendants made any objection to this procedure, nor had there been a request to confine the jurors during the course of the trial. It was not until the Court convened the next day that any objection was voiced, that solely on the theory newspaper reports published that morning and radio broadcasts concerning the case were prejudicial to the defendants. There was neither a showing nor even an intimation that any juror actually saw the newspaper, heard any of the broadcasts, or was in any way influenced thereby. 47 Moreover, the Supreme Court has stated in its per curiam opinion in Marshall v. United States, 360 U.S. 310, 79 S.Ct. 1171, 3 L.Ed.2d 1250, The trial judge has a large discretion in ruling on the issue of prejudice resulting from the reading by jurors of news articles concerning the trial. The Court then cites Holt, supra, and says, Generalizations beyond that statement are not profitable, because each case must turn on its special facts. Here the trial court gave full, explicit and correct instructions to the jurors before allowing them to disperse. Clearly there was no abuse of discretion in this instance.