Opinion ID: 722508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Juror Exposure to Extra-judicial Information

Text: 30 In the course of the trial two articles appeared in the Washington Post that led the court to conduct voir dires of the jurors to make sure there had been and would be no prejudice. While appellants do not claim error in the trial court's contemporaneous handling of these episodes, they object to the court's failure to recall the jurors when several of them signed post-trial affidavits asserting that there had been more exposure to the papers--particularly to these articles--than the jurors had acknowledged in the voir dires. But the material to which the jurors belatedly claimed exposure was in its essence cumulative of trial evidence. We find no error. 31 On March 13, 1992, about a month after the jury was sworn, the Post ran a front-page article, Michael York, Witness Threats Reported In R Street Drug Trial, saying that two government witnesses had been threatened and that signs had been posted in the R Street area warning snitchers. That morning defendants moved for a mistrial and the court, after verifying that there were no newspapers in the jury room, conducted an individual voir dire of each juror. Two jurors said they had heard a report about threats to witnesses, 821 F.Supp. at 736, but both said the report would not affect their ability to be impartial. All jurors said they would avoid press reports and would base their verdict solely upon the evidence at trial. Id. at 735-36. On May 18, 1992 the Post ran another front-page story called Enforcers Are D.C.'s Dealers of Death (by Pierre Thomas and Michael York), which mentioned Nugent by name as an example of an enforcer [319 U.S.App.D.C. 277] who maintained a drug gang's control over territory. Again the trial court conducted individual voir dire of the jurors, and all disclaimed familiarity with the article. 821 F.Supp. at 736. 32 After the trial, four jurors gave affidavits stating that other jurors read newspaper accounts of the trial and discussed them in the jury room. Interestingly, only one of these affiants participated in the final verdict, as two were alternates and one was dismissed midway through the deliberations. (Dews and Isaac, and Scott, respectively.) A fifth juror, Garnett, uniquely admitted reading an article himself, saying that he had seen, and had falsely denied seeing, the article on death threats to witness, presumably referring to the March 13, 1992 article. He also said the jurors had read articles that the judge did not inquire about, citing the one where the government was saying they had to use different means to get witnesses to cooperate. (An article submitted in post-trial proceedings matching this description is Michael York & Sari Horwitz, Threats to Witnesses Increasing in District, Wash. Post, Mar. 16, 1992, at D1, mentioning problems with persuading witnesses to testify for the government in the R Street trial.) And Garnett claimed that [w]e also heard about the case on the radio and TV. 33 The trial court ruled that the affidavits would warrant a hearing only if they showed a likelihood of prejudice, 821 F.Supp. at 738, and concluded that they did not. Although finding the jurors' responses on voir dire more credible than their recantations, id. at 736, the court also found that neither [of the two articles occasioning a voir dire] contained extraneous, extra-judicial information about defendants that could have prejudiced their right to a fair trial. Id. at 737. In particular, the court detailed government evidence at trial for the murders of rival drug dealers mentioned in the May 18 article. Id. The court's approach here, inquiring into whether the alleged improper exposures were cumulative, fully accords with our treatment of other types of exposures to extra-judicial material. See, e.g., Dallago, 427 F.2d at 559 (delivery into jury room of unadmitted document is harmless error where it was merely cumulative of properly admitted evidence); United States v. Treadwell, 760 F.2d 327, 339 (D.C.Cir.1985) (similar). The court found that [w]hat little extra-judicial information each article did contain about defendants was merely duplicative of evidence already introduced in open court.... 821 F.Supp. at 738. 34 Appellants do not contest that finding except as to the Post articles alluding to threats to witnesses. While the government argues that this was cumulative because the witness Rosalind Cherry revealed these threats to the jury, appellants correctly point out that she denied ever being threatened by defendants. The record, nonetheless, shows that Cherry intensely feared retaliation; given her familiarity with defendants, one would have to be quite obtuse not to suppose that the fear derived from that familiarity. She admitted that she was scared to testify, that the government had recently given her money to move out of Southeast Washington, and that three or four agents surrounded her when she went to court to testify. Given this information, coupled with the defendants' practice of removing or attempting to remove other people who proved inconvenient, which was amply shown at trial, the material in the article appears largely cumulative. 35 There are, in addition, juror Garnett's allegations of exposure to other sources, such as radio and television reports. But Garnett offered no detail from which one could infer that this added anything to the trial evidence itself. Further, the court found Garnett's affidavit to be particularly suspect because of a likely motive to impeach his verdict. 821 F.Supp. at 755. Garnett was quoted in a post-trial Post article, Michael York & Linda Wheeler, Fear Said to Affect R St. Jury, July 24, 1992, at B1, saying that he was surprised to learn that three defendants would receive life without parole despite acquittal on the RICO charges. He said he had focused on the racketeering charges, knew that this was the first time prosecutors had attempted to get convictions for a local drug gang using RICO, and expressed his disapproval of the effort. The U.S. Attorney's office had brought the charges, he said,  'to satisfy the public,'  [319 U.S.App.D.C. 278] and he was  'disturbed'  that the government appeared more concerned with prosecuting the R Street defendants than their cocaine suppliers in Central America. Id. Given Garnett's self-description as a person who entered the jury room with an agenda of limiting the damage to defendants, we think the district court was well within its discretion in declining to summon the jurors back. 36 On these media exposures we note again the overwhelming character of the evidence against defendants, making the chance that these exposures could have affected the verdict exceedingly remote. See pages 274-75 above. 37 We note, finally, that the one shred of evidence as to whether the jurors allowed the press to influence them suggests that they did not. Isaac's affidavit refers to an April 23, 1992 Post article that mentioned the purchase of a pair of custom-made baby alligator shoes costing about $2,200, apparently for Williams-Davis. Michael York, R Street Crew Leaders Were Big Spenders, Wash. Post, Apr. 23, 1992, at C3. Isaac says of the article, Once there was a mistake in the paper about the $2,000 shoes. The comment indicates that Isaac, quite properly, trusted her own recollection of the evidence over the Post reporter's. Cf. 821 F.Supp. at 741 (observing that the matters in the article were merely duplicative of trial evidence). 38 In affirming the trial court, we endorse its view that defendants bringing post-trial claims of mid-trial media exposure must make a threshold showing of a likelihood of prejudice. We reach this conclusion quite independently of our earlier conclusion that the presumption of prejudice stated in Remmer's initial formulation has eroded; we think Remmer never applied at all outside the area of private contacts with jurors. 39 The few decisions in the courts of appeals that explicitly address juror exposure to mid-trial publicity have not applied the Remmer presumption. See, e.g., Waldorf v. Shuta, 3 F.3d 705, 710 (3d Cir.1993) (stating that defendants have burden of showing likelihood of actual prejudice); United States v. Boylan, 898 F.2d 230, 258-60 (1st Cir.1990). In Boylan the court confined Remmer on the grounds that the media exposure lacked the characteristics stressed by the Remmer Court as justifying the presumption, namely, the paucity of data about the event (an attempted bribe) and its extreme nature. Boylan specifically notes that the absence of third party involvement makes it much easier to secure a picture of what has happened, id. at 260; that absence is, of course, typical of media exposure episodes. Cf. United States v. Herring, 568 F.2d 1099, 1103 (5th Cir.1978) (presumption of prejudice nominally applied, but with court finding specific timing and content of article highly prejudicial); United States v. Manzella, 782 F.2d 533, 542 (5th Cir.1986) (no prejudice although jurors read article telling of defendant's prior conviction, where in mid-trial voir dire they said that they had noticed only facts brought out at trial). Indeed, on its face Remmer refers only to a private communication, contact, or tampering with a juror. 347 U.S. at 229, 74 S.Ct. at 451. We agree that not even a diluted version of the Remmer presumption applies in cases of juror exposure to media coverage about the case (except perhaps in an instance where someone was deliberately using the media to contact the jurors). But see United States v. Posner, 644 F.Supp. 885, 887 (S.D.Fla.1986) (applying Remmer presumption to case of mid-trial juror media exposure; reversing conviction), aff'd. sub nom. United States v. Scharrer, 828 F.2d 773 (11th Cir.1987) (table). 40 The Third Circuit in Waldorf v. Shuta set forth an approach for mid-trial claims of media exposure that seems to us a basis, with suitable adjustments, for post-trial claims. That decision directed district courts to (1) determine if material is prejudicial; (2) determine whether jurors were exposed to it; and (3) examine exposed jurors to determine if their impartiality was compromised, 3 F.3d at 709-10, and it assigned defendants the burden of showing the likelihood of actual prejudice, id. Where the issue is raised post-trial, of course, F.R.E. 606(b) forbids examining jurors directly on their impartiality (the third step), and because they have dispersed it is far more burdensome to query them even on the aspect permitted by Rule 606(b)--the degree of [319 U.S.App.D.C. 279] exposure (the second step). Accordingly, then, the court should address the first step (as it did here), taking into account the degree to which the material was cumulative and whether the evidence against defendants was (as here) overwhelming. If prejudice is likely, then inquiries as to the degree of exposure are necessary, and, ultimately, some judgment as to the likely impact on impartiality. Our review of the district court findings is deferential, as it is for review of trial court handling of pre-trial publicity, Childress, 58 F.3d at 706 (trial court's finding of juror impartiality only reviewed for manifest error), and of private communications to jurors, see pages 273-74 above. As our analysis above makes clear, in applying these standards we find no error in the scope of the district court's inquiry and its finding of no prejudice from the almost entirely cumulative material.
41 In their affidavits, two jurors stated that during deliberations the forewoman looked up the word enterprise in a dictionary and read out the definition to persuade jurors to convict. According to juror Scott, the forewoman was trying to persuade fellow jurors on the continuing criminal enterprise count. The district court found this use of a dictionary to be not prejudicial because the term enterprise was legally significant only for the RICO counts, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961(4), 1962, and the jury acquitted defendants of these charges. As to the CCE counts, the statute uses the term enterprise only in labelling the crime, not in identifying any of the criteria that must be satisfied to show the crime's commission. 21 U.S.C. § 848(c). The court therefore decided that jury consideration of a dictionary definition of that word does not implicate the dangers usually associated with this form of juror misconduct. 821 F.Supp. at 739. Appellants contend that because the jury could have looked up other words in the dictionary, and because the use of a dictionary definition of enterprise could have been prejudicial on the CCE counts despite its irrelevance to the necessary jury findings, the trial court should have recalled the jury for questioning. 42 Again we see no reason why a presumption of prejudice should be suitable for this sort of extraneous material, any more than it would be for media exposure. Cases from other circuits are mixed. The Eighth Circuit has declined to apply a Remmer presumption to jurors' use of extraneous material for resolution of a legal as opposed to a factual issue, United States v. Blumeyer, 62 F.3d 1013, 1016-17 (8th Cir.1995), a distinction that the court does not explain and that does not on its face seem convincing. The Sixth Circuit has applied concepts in accord with our general treatment of extraneous materials, saying that prejudice is not to be automatically inferred even if jurors in fact studied a dictionary definition. United States v. Gillespie, 61 F.3d 457, 460 (6th Cir.1995). On that court's view the trial court has extensive discretion to fashion its inquiry, and review is for abuse of discretion. Id. See also United States v. Duncan, 598 F.2d 839, 866 (4th Cir.1979) (same). While United States v. Martinez, 14 F.3d 543, 550 (11th Cir.1994), applied a Remmer presumption to jurors' use of a dictionary, the case involved intrusion of many other extraneous materials, which the court in fact found prejudicial. And in a civil case the Tenth Circuit spoke of its application of Remmer to any external information, but in fact the court delineated a range of factors to be considered in estimating the likelihood of prejudice. Mayhue v. St. Francis Hospital, 969 F.2d 919, 922-23 (10th Cir.1992). Cf. United States v. Console, 13 F.3d 641, 665-66 (3d Cir.1993) (purporting to apply Remmer presumption to erroneous definition originating in juror's sister). Obviously where the word is critical to a necessary determination, a finding of prejudice is likely. See, e.g., Marino v. Vasquez, 812 F.2d 499, 505-06 (9th Cir.1987) (presence of malice, which jurors looked up in the dictionary after thirty days' deliberation, was crucial to conviction); Mayhue, 969 F.2d at 924. 43 We see no need for further proliferation of categories, and think the alleged contamination is properly assessed in accordance with the standards outlined above for post-trial claims of media exposure--the burden is on defendant to show prejudice, which at the [319 U.S.App.D.C. 280] outset is to be done by examination of the alleged illicit exposure in the full context of the trial. Here the defendants have not gotten past the first step. They have not shown that the portion of the dictionary to which the jurors were exposed could, in its nature, have played a prejudicial role. The word looked up had no legal relevance to the findings necessary for the charges on which the jury convicted, and the defendants, despite their counsel's access to quite a few evidently regretful jurors, offer no reason to believe that the jury looked up other words. 44