Opinion ID: 2960719
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury recall and misconduct proceedings

Text: Later that night, the circuit court concluded that it had erred in not accepting the guilty verdict on Count II. The circuit court contacted counsel and “start[ed] gathering jurors 7 Under Hawai#i Rules of Penal Procedure Rule 31© (2015), “Poll of Jury,” [w]hen 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, or there is not concurrence by the number of jurors stipulated to as being necessary for returning a verdict, the jury may be directed to retire for further deliberations or may be discharged. 14  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  up” for recall. There is no evidence in the record that the circuit court informed the jurors that they were not to discuss the case with others. Due to “unavailability of counsel because of prior commitments,” the circuit court was unable to meet with counsel regarding this issue until April 7, 2011, which was two days after discharging the jury. At the April 7, 2011 chambers conference, the circuit court informed counsel that it believed it had made a mistake by not accepting the jury’s verdict on Count II because the jurors were required to vote unanimously in the affirmative on only one of the three interrogatory questions on the verdict form to submit a guilty verdict on Count II as a class A felony. The circuit court also indicated its intention to “gather the jury members, go back on record and poll them, and then depending on the results of the poll, proceed from there.” The circuit court scheduled the proceeding for April 13, 2011, and invited counsel to “file anything respective counsel wanted to on this issue.” The circuit court contacted all of the jurors, who “were all amenable to coming back at this day and time.” Deguair’s objections to the circuit court’s recall of the jury for the purposes of polling (Objections to Recall and Polling) were filed on April 11, 2011. The State responded to Deguair’s objections. Without ruling on Deguair’s Objections to the Recall and Polling, the circuit court reconvened the jury on April 13, 15  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  2011. Before the jurors were called into the courtroom, the circuit court stated that on April 5, 2011, the jurors were “deadlocked six to six” on Counts I, III, and IV. The DPA asked: [W]ill [t]he Court be open to confirming that on April 5, 2011, after the jury was discharged, that this Court, in fact, did speak with the jurors in the jury room, as it indicated that it was going to do so, and during that conversation, the Court was able to determine where the jurors stood on all counts, including Count 2? Will the Court confirm that? The circuit court answered, “[n]o, because I think that’s tantamount to making myself a witness in this case, and I’m not going to do that.” Defense counsel raised concerns about the jurors’ potential exposure to “publicity” regarding the case. MR. HUNT: And my concern is since the jury was discharged almost ten days ago, you know, eight or nine days ago, there has been publicity. I did attach as an Exhibit A to my memo the fact that there was publicity, and there was a notation that there was an earlier murder. I think, it was in 2002 that Mr. DeGuair [sic] was a suspect in but was not prosecuted because there were no witnesses to testify and so forth. So, I’m concerned that the jury has had extraneous influence now that–- THE COURT: Potentially. MR. HUNT: Yes, yes. After-- THE COURT: I mean, you know, just--we don’t know in fact that any of them-- MR. HUNT: True. THE COURT: --that’s all I’m saying. Go on. MR. HUNT: And I agree with the Court. We don’t know unless we ask. And, I suppose, to be careful, I think, we should probably do some inquiry--at least, I’m making that request--what the jury has since exposed themselves to since being discharged, whether 16  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  they’ve gone on the internet and read newspapers and looked up the case and things. But, the bottom line is, with all due respect, I think the Court, once it discharged the jury, lost the power to call it back and ask it to poll--to poll it and to render a true verdict. THE COURT: No. Certainly, I understand your point. And as I say, in the fullness of time, you may be vindicated. I, frankly, am not sure. I would note just, sort of, parenthetically that, again, I don't know whether--how much water this will carry or, for example, how much it would make a difference to an appellate court looking at this. But, I would, like I said, note parenthetically that, you know, your client and defendants in his position have a right to a jury poll under the Hawai#i rules of penal procedure. It’s not a constitutional right. MR. HUNT: Correct. (Emphases added). The circuit court, again over defense counsel’s objection, questioned the jury as to whether they agreed with the guilty verdict on Count II and Interrogatory Nos. 1 and 3 relating to Count II. Each juror answered in the affirmative. The circuit court also asked the jurors whether their responses would have been the same if the circuit court had asked for their numerical split on April 5, 2011. The jurors answered in the affirmative. The circuit court did not ask the jurors whether they had been exposed to publicity or discussed the case with others. The circuit court accepted the jury’s verdict on Count II and adjudged Deguair guilty of kidnapping as a Class A felony. Later that day, on April 13, 2011, the circuit court received a telephone voice mail message from Juror No. 4. The message stated the following: [JUROR 4]: I was in the jury of Patrick Deguair trial, No. 4. Um, I had some concerns, and I was–I 17  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  didn’t know who to talk to. And it probably happens all the time. But I really--during deliberation, I really suspected that people looked at the Internet ‘cause things came out that weren’t in trial, and it really bothers me. And I think some--and I think there was a fear factor for some of these jurors. And if you’re going to retry this, somehow--you know, you’re not--it’s going to come out the same way because people are going to be too scared. It’s too small of an island. I know you--you didn’t have that --you tried to put that fear out of our heads, but I-- I have a concern. I don’t know, um--I don’t know what you can do about it except sequester, but I think that people did--did just go right on and looked and found out stuff. The circuit court reconvened to question Juror No. 4 on April 15, 2011. Juror No. 4 testified that Juror No. 18 said “she was not going to get up in open court and say guilty.” Juror No. 4 also reported three instances of possible juror misconduct: (1) statements made by Juror No. 1 during deliberation of the jury that there was “documented evidence” that Deguair had threatened four people, suggesting that Juror No. 1 had consulted outside sources of information9; (2) mention of the name of a “Samoan gang” that may have been involved, which Juror No. 4 claimed had not come to light during the trial; and (3) Juror No. 1 had conducted her own experiment by putting duct tape on her forearm to see if it left residue marks, the result of which experiment Juror No. 1 reported to other jurors. The other jurors were subsequently questioned 8 Juror No. 1 served as the foreperson. 9 Juror No. 1 later testified that she did not make this statement. 18  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  individually. Five other jurors corroborated Juror No. 4’s testimony that Juror No. 1 had said that she would not say Deguair was guilty in open court. Juror No. 1 confirmed that she had been concerned about gang membership and being the target of retaliation. When the circuit court asked about the jurors’ “fear of being on a hit list” and “the mention of Samoan gangs,” Juror No. 1 explained: A ... [W]ell, it’s probably because people--people have told us or we’ve seen on TV where you’re--if you’re the identifiable person, the foreperson, that maybe there’s repercussions after. And so people were afraid. Q Were they afraid that they might be killed or murdered by someone associated with a Samoan gang? A Well, those words didn’t really come up, but it was just you’d get attacked or, you know, targeted. So when we started picking our foreperson, one person specifically said, I absolutely do not, cannot, don’t want to be it for these reasons. And then I even said, Okay, me too. For that reason, I don’t want to do it. And so it kind of--how the discussion went. And then we ended up doing it randomly. So we picked numbers out of a bag. Five other jurors recalled hearing statements regarding fear of reprisal should the jury find Deguair guilty and the consequences of being the foreperson. Regarding the duct tape experiment, Juror No. 1 testified that, after the first day of deliberations, “I wanted to validate the residue part of the evidence that was in the picture, how that would happen. So I took tape and I stuck it on my forearm and waited ten minutes and then pulled it off, and that was it.” Further, Juror Nos. 4 and 8 confirmed that after the 19  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  jury was discharged but before the jury was recalled, they did research Deguair on the internet. Juror No. 4 testified that she found Deguair had allegedly threatened other people in the past. Juror No. 8 testified that she found Deguair had supposedly murdered someone else.