Opinion ID: 486363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Community Sentiment

Text: 20 Given the propriety and decorum with which the trial was conducted, the sequestration of the jurors, and the apparent impartiality of the selected jurors as revealed in their individual voir dire responses, the only remaining question is whether the publicity surrounding the Cerro Maravilla affair created an environment so irremediably tainted that we must hold, as a matter of law, that appellants were denied a fair trial. Our dissenting brother thinks this is so. He believes that even though appellants did not seek or wish a change of venue, they should have been granted a requested second continuance, and that denial of a continuance was a reversible error. 11 21 As already stated, we readily accept that this case involves a publicity issue of unusual seriousness, presenting as it did charges of cold-blooded murder and police corruption that became causes celebres throughout Puerto Rico. Being a compact, insular community, Puerto Rico is highly susceptible to the impact of local media. Where, as here, an issue touches on fundamental political disagreements, involves a televised legislative investigation and charges of a government coverup, and becomes a focal point of an animated gubernatorial campaign, public attention is focused even more heavily on the island's various media. 22 The issue, however, is whether the effect of the publicity, widespread as it undoubtedly was, was such as to foreclose appellants' right to a fair trial. We see no convincing evidence of this. Were we to accept our dissenting brother's position, appellants, who did not seek such a change of venue and made it clear on appeal they did not want one, could be insulated from trial indefinitely. 23 In most cases where the Supreme Court or lower courts have reversed because of publicity surrounding a criminal trial, there has been specific proof of a tainted trial process or of prejudiced jurors. The Supreme Court has indicated, however, that in very extraordinary circumstances it may disregard the jurors' professions of impartiality and presume prejudice when the community has been overcome by widespread, highly inflammatory publicity. See, e.g., Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 303, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 2303, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977) (in the absence of a 'trial atmosphere ... utterly corrupted by press coverage' , defendant must point to specific portions of the record ... which would require a finding of constitutional unfairness) (citation omitted) (emphasis supplied). As an indirect means of determining whether community prejudice resulting from publicity may have unconsciously infected the jurors who were seated, the Court has sometimes noted how many non-seated members of the venire admitted to a disqualifying prejudice. As the Court stated in Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 803, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 2037, 44 L.Ed.2d 589 (1975), [i]n a community where most veniremen will admit to a disqualifying prejudice, the reliability of the others' protestations may be drawn into question; for it is then more probable that they are part of a community deeply hostile to the accused, and more likely that they may unwittingly have been influenced by it. Thus, in Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961), the Court reversed a murder conviction after finding a pattern of deep and bitter prejudice in the community. As support for this conclusion, the Court noted not only that eight of the twelve jurors had, before trial, admitted to believing the defendant guilty, but that 90 percent of the venire members examined on the point admitted to having some opinion as to guilt, ranging in intensity from mere suspicion to absolute certainty. Id. at 727, 81 S.Ct. at 1645. 24 In the present case, none of the seated jurors admitted at the voir dire to any such belief that defendants were guilty; and our review of the voir dire record relative to those not seated indicates that the percentage of prejudiced venire members was well below the threshold that would justify presuming bias on the part of seated jurors despite the latter's professions of impartiality. Our dissenting brother quotes impressively from the responses of some of the more prejudiced venire members, (who, of course, did not sit as jurors), but our review indicates that of those venire members whose responses can be adequately construed on whether they had an opinion as to appellants' guilt or innocence, approximately 25 percent admitted, in varying degrees, to believing that defendants were guilty. Roughly ten percent of the venire suggested some belief that appellants may be innocent. 12 (Virtually all members of the venire admitted to some prior knowledge of the Cerro Maravilla incident and the subsequent investigation.) 25 Although these statistics are inherently imprecise, based as they are on the often subjective task of categorizing voir dire testimony, they provide a useful estimate of venire attitudes. In Murphy v. Florida, the Court found that 20 of the 78 venire members questioned--roughly 25 percent--were excused because they indicated an opinion as to petitioner's guilt. In affirming the conviction, the Supreme Court stated that [t]his may indeed be 20 more than would occur in the trial of a totally obscure person, but it by no means suggests a community with sentiment so poisoned against petitioner as to impeach the indifference of jurors who displayed no animus of their own. 421 U.S. at 803, 95 S.Ct. at 2038. By the same token, we cannot conclude from the approximately one-quarter of the venire here who admitted to believing in appellants' guilt that the community as a whole was so prejudiced against defendants by inflammatory pretrial publicity as to call into question the seated jurors' assertions of impartiality. 26 Perhaps the strongest support for appellants' argument that we must presume prejudice from the publicity is to be found in one case, Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723, 83 S.Ct. 1417, 10 L.Ed.2d 663 (1963). Rideau is the only case in which the Supreme Court has reversed a conviction based solely on the egregiousness of pretrial publicity and without specific proof that the jurors who sat--or the trial itself--were prejudiced thereby. 13 Rideau involved a defendant, Wilbert Rideau, who robbed a bank in Lake Charles, Louisiana, kidnapped three of the bank's employees, and killed one of them. After defendant was apprehended, he confessed on film to having committed the crime. On the day he confessed and each of the next two days, a Lake Charles television station aired the film, reaching anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of the community's population. Following his arraignment, Rideau moved for a change of venue, which the state trial court denied. Rideau was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. 27 The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, holding specifically that it was a denial of due process of law to refuse the request for a change of venue. Id. at 726, 83 S.Ct. at 1419. The Court reasoned that given the tens of thousands of people who saw the detailed confession, [a]ny subsequent court proceeding in a community so pervasively exposed to such a spectacle could be but a hollow formality. Id. The Court presumed prejudice, finding it unnecessary to review the transcript of the voir dire or to take any other step to ascertain the effect the televised confession had on community sentiment. 28 We do not believe Rideau controls the instant appeal. First, Rideau and the other publicity cases involved defendants and crimes which the community could only view with total abhorrence. Here, however, the charged conduct, violent and brutal though it was, would not cause appellants to be seen in black and white terms by all members of the community equally. The Cerro Maravilla victims were themselves alleged terrorists, who, in going to Cerro Maravilla to blow up a television tower, adopted both means and goals many people would find distasteful. Defendants were police of previously good repute, not members of the criminal element like Rideau. The case was highly politicized, undoubtedly causing some in the community to view the senate investigation as a politically motivated proceeding whose findings were inherently suspect. Moreover, the question of who was at fault--the defendant police officers; their supervisors; the incumbent governor, Romero Barcelo, who was accused of covering up the incident; or the terrorists--was likely a matter both of considerable doubt and difference of opinion. Thus, it would be wrong to assume that the Puerto Rico public responded uniformly to the publicity and, as one person, stood ready to convict. 14 The jurors could well have seen the trial as a genuine opportunity to hear the evidence in a reliable setting and determine, at last, the truth. 29 Second, the publicity present in Rideau was, in the context of the trial, more prejudicial than the publicity at issue here. In Rideau, the community was exposed within a few weeks of trial to televised replays of defendant's own confession given soon after the kidnapping and murder. In the instant case, the public was exposed not to confessions by the defendants, but to incriminating testimony by witnesses who were granted immunity. The senate hearings that elicited this testimony occurred five years after the shootings at Cerro Maravilla and two years before the trial. These facts, while not diminishing the seriousness of the questions raised by the extensive and continuous publicity, suggest that the overwhelming lynch-mob atmosphere described in Rideau was not present. In the absence of such an atmosphere, and convinced that the trial itself was conducted fairly, we are reluctant to make a conclusive presumption of prejudice, against the evidence of the empanelled jurors' voir dire and the conclusion of the district court that the jury was not biased against defendants. 30 Finally, unlike Rideau, the question here is not whether it was constitutional error for a court to refuse a requested change of venue. No such change was sought, and appellants have made it clear on appeal that they did not desire one. A change of venue would have ensured a trial before jurors without previous knowledge of the Cerro Maravilla affair. 15 31 It is true that this circuit earlier observed that Puerto Rico is singularly unsuited to a change of venue.... In re San Juan Star Co., 662 F.2d 108, 117 (1st Cir.1981). But this observation, in the context made, was not a major pronouncement. At issue in San Juan Star was the validity of protective orders issued by the district court at an earlier stage in the civil rights case arising from this same incident. Because the orders limited the press's access to deposition testimony, the court's review included an inquiry as to whether measures less restrictive of first amendment rights could preserve the fairness of any upcoming criminal trial. In that context, the court made the quoted observation. In the same sentence, the court noted the unsuitability of granting a continuance: postponement of a trial of such urgent proportions could seriously jeopardize important interests in its resolution. 662 F.2d at 117. Given the latter reference, it is clear the venue comment in San Juan Star falls short of supporting appellants' argument that, in Puerto Rico, a continuance is the preferred mechanism for shielding criminal trials from the effects of adverse publicity. While we recognize the problems associated with a change in venue, it remains a feasible option for a Puerto Rico accused confronted with publicity at home. 32 Courts have held that a motion for a change of venue is the preferred remedy where a community has been saturated with publicity adverse to the defendant. Finnegan v. United States, 204 F.2d 105, 110 (8th Cir.) ([N]ewspaper publicity tending to excite public prejudice against a defendant is not usually considered as a sufficient reason for granting an application for continuance.... [T]here was no application for a change of venue, which is usually considered the correct remedy in such situations.), cert. denied, 346 U.S. 821, 74 S.Ct. 36, 98 L.Ed. 347 reh. denied, 346 U.S. 880, 74 S.Ct. 118, 98 L.Ed. 387 (1953). See also Dennis v. United States, 302 F.2d 5, 8 (10th Cir.1962) (In ruling on Travis' pretrial motions for severance and continuance on the grounds of prejudicial publicity, the trial court indicated that the proper remedy was change of venue, and invited such motion.), rev'd on other grounds, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966). Cf. United States v. Pfingst, 477 F.2d 177, 185-86 (2d Cir.) (fact that [a]ppellant never moved for a change of venue supports trial judge's denial of motion for new trial based on prejudicial publicity), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 941, 93 S.Ct. 2779, 37 L.Ed.2d 400 (1973). 33 Application for a continuance rather than a change of venue is particularly disfavored where, as here, there is little reason to believe that the prejudicial publicity complained of will abate within a foreseeable period: 34 The denial of a motion for an indefinite or substantial continuance predicated upon widespread adverse pretrial publicity about a defendant is all the more warranted when, as here, there is sound reason to believe that the defendant will continue to be a controversial, publicity-invoking figure and, hence, that there is little assurance that the passage of time will result in an abatement or subsidence of critical publicity in the foreseeable future. 35 United States v. Hoffa, 156 F.Supp. 495, 500 (S.D.N.Y.1957). Cf. United States v. Marcello, 280 F.Supp. 510, 519 (E.D.La.1968) ([D]ue to the continuing nature of the prejudicial publicity in this area, ... nothing is gained by a continuance under such circumstances, except to delay the inevitable, and it is improper to grant the continuance in such a situation because it does not obviate the difficulty.). 16 36 We are aware of only one case in which the district court's refusal to grant a continuance led the circuit court to order a new trial, Delaney v. United States, 199 F.2d 107 (1st Cir.1952). Unlike the instant case, Delaney involved massive pre-trial publicity, on a nationwide scale, id. at 113, stemming from public hearings conducted by the United States Congress about a series of similar crimes around the country. There, a change of venue would have provided no relief from the effects of adverse publicity, such that, under the circumstances of this case we do not think that the defendant's appeal stands any worse for failure on his part to apply for a change of venue. Id. at 116. 37 In addition, the source of the court's order in Delaney lay not in the rock-bottom requirements of the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, but in the appellate courts' supervisory power for establishing and maintaining civilized standards of procedure and evidence in the federal courts. Id. at 113. In choosing to exercise its supervisory power, the court placed great emphasis on the fact that the hearings giving rise to the prejudicial publicity had been staged by a coordinate branch of the same government to which the trial court belonged: 38 If the United States, through its legislative department ... chooses to hold a public hearing inevitably resulting in such damaging publicity prejudicial to a person awaiting trial on a pending indictment, then the United States must accept the consequence that the judicial department, charged with the duty of assuring the defendant a fair trial before an impartial jury, may find it necessary to postpone the trial until by lapse of time the danger of the prejudice may reasonably be thought to have been substantially removed. 39 Id. at 114. By contrast, the legislative hearings on the Cerro Maravilla shootout were staged by the Senate of Puerto Rico, and they were initiated before any of the defendants had been indicted. The pattern of official conduct that led this court in Delaney to exercise its supervisory power is therefore less evident here. 17 40 It is, of course, true that the sixth amendment entitles a criminal accused to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. U.S. Const. amend. VI. One can argue that an accused is not required to yield his constitutional right to be tried in the vicinage in order to secure another constitutional right, trial before an impartial jury. But this argument is not dispositive in circumstances like these. See United States ex rel. Darcy v. Handy, 351 U.S. 454, 463, 76 S.Ct. 965, 970, 100 L.Ed. 1331 (1956) (although not dispositive, petitioner's failure to move for a change of venue as a means to prevent the drawing of an unfair trial jury from a community allegedly infected with hysteria and prejudice is significant); Stroble v. California, 343 U.S. 181, 193-94, 72 S.Ct. 599, 605-06, 96 L.Ed. 872 (1952). The sixth amendment also guarantees a speedy trial, a right to which the government, as well as the accused, has a claim. Government--society itself--cannot be utterly deprived of the right to prosecute and try someone for a crime within a reasonable time merely because of widespread community knowledge. 41 If an accused in a situation such as the present seeks a change of venue, judicial fairness may require that it be granted. As in Rideau, should the request be denied, this could be a denial of due process of law. But if an accused expressly declines to seek a venue change, we think he carries a significantly heavier burden to show that widespread community publicity concerning the crimes of which he is charged render his trial presumptively unfair--that, because of the publicity alone, the jurors drawn from the district where he insists he has a right to be tried are presumptively unfit to meet the impartial jury standard of the sixth amendment. Society cannot be placed in a position where it is unable to bring to trial the violators of its laws. 42 Here, although the evidence shows intense publicity, it is not, given the factors discussed above, so extreme as to warrant our presuming prejudice solely from the nature of the publicity. 18