Opinion ID: 1809569
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Juror-Misconduct Issue

Text: We granted certiorari review in part to examine the misconduct of juror S.B. During the guilt phase of Apicella's trial, before the jury began deliberations, S.B. spoke with an attorney, T.R., with whom S.B. was acquainted. [5] The subject of their conversation was the law of complicity, an issue material to Apicella's trial. [6] S.B. testified that his conversation with T.R. lasted approximately 2½ minutes, that T.R. was distracted during the conversation, and that they discussed the law of complicity only in the most general of terms. S.B. further testified that T.R.'s comments did not enter into his thoughts during deliberations and that the trial court's instructions on the law of complicity were crystal clear. There is no question that S.B.'s actions constituted misconduct. At issue is whether this misconduct warrants a new trial. Generally, under Alabama law, juror misconduct involving the introduction of extraneous materials warrants a new trial when one of two requirements is met: 1) the jury verdict is shown to have been actually prejudiced by the extraneous material; or 2) the extraneous material is of such a nature as to constitute prejudice as a matter of law. Knight v. State, 710 So.2d 511, 517 (Ala.Crim.App.1997). We conclude that neither of those requirements has been met in this case. Apicella argues that when a court is determining whether a juror's conduct has caused actual prejudice the standard applied is whether the extraneous material might have influenced that juror and others with whom he deliberated, Roan v. State, 225 Ala. 428, 435, 143 So. 454, 460 (1932). Apicella relies heavily upon this statement in Roan: The test of vitiating influence is not that it did influence a member of the jury to act without the evidence, but that it might have unlawfully influenced that juror and others with whom he deliberated, and might have unlawfully influenced its verdict rendered. 225 Ala. at 435, 143 So. at 460. On its face, this standard would require nothing more than that the defendant establish that juror misconduct occurred. As Apicella argues, the word might encompasses the entire realm of possibility and the court cannot rule out all possible scenarios in which the jury's verdict might have been affected. However, as other Alabama cases establish, more is required of the defendant. In Reed v. State, 547 So.2d 596, 598 (Ala. 1989), this Court addressed a similar case of juror misconduct: We begin by noting that no single fact or circumstance will determine whether the verdict rendered in a given case might have been unlawfully influenced by a juror's [misconduct]. Rather, it is a case's own peculiar set of circumstances that will decide the issue. In this case, it is undisputed that the juror told none of the other members of the jury of her experiment until after the verdict had been reached. While the question of whether she might have been unlawfully influenced by the experiment still remains, the juror testified at the post-trial hearing on the defendant's motion for a new trial that her vote had not been affected by the [misconduct]. It is clear, then, that the question whether the jury's decision might have been affected is answered not by a bare showing of juror misconduct, but rather by an examination of the circumstances particular to the case. In this case, as in Reed, the effect of the misconduct was confined to the juror who committed the misconduct. The Reed Court stated: We cannot agree with the defendant that the verdict rendered might have been unlawfully influenced, where the results of the [misconduct] were known only to the one juror who [committed the misconduct] and that juror remained unaffected by the [misconduct]. 547 So.2d at 598. Because no evidence indicates that S.B. shared the content of his conversation with the other members of the jury and because no evidence indicates that S.B.'s own vote was affected, we cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in finding no actual prejudice. Apicella also argues that we should hold the extraneous material introduced through S.B.'s conversation with T.R. to be prejudicial as a matter of law. Apicella supports this argument with the following language from Knight, 710 So.2d at 517: `Juror misconduct will justify a new trial ... when from the extraneous facts prejudice may be presumed as a matter of law.' Whitten v. Allstate Ins. Co., 447 So.2d 655, 658 (Ala.1984).... However, in some cases, `the character and nature of the extraneous material [constitute] prejudice as a matter of law and no showing that the jury was in fact influenced thereby in arriving at their verdict is necessary.' Id. (prejudice presumed as a matter of law from jury's consulting encyclopedia and dictionary definitions ...). (Quoting Minshew v. State, 594 So.2d 703, 716 (Ala.Crim.App.1991)). On the other hand, we have also held that mere exposure to [a] definition does not require a new trial as a matter of law. Pearson v. Fomby, 688 So.2d 239, 245 (Ala.1997). Our holding in Pearson serves to emphasize the limitations of the doctrine of prejudice as a matter of law. Generally, a presumption of prejudice applies only in a case in which the jury's consideration of the extraneous material was `crucial in resolving a key material issue in the case.' Dawson v. State, 710 So.2d 472, 475 (Ala.1997) (citing Hallmark v. Allison, 451 So.2d 270, 271 (Ala.1984), and Ex parte Thomas, 666 So.2d 855 (Ala.1995)). We are not willing to presume prejudice as a matter of law in this case. No evidence indicates that extraneous information arising from S.B.'s conversation influenced S.B.'s vote or that the information was ever considered by any other member of the jury. This case is distinguishable from cases such as Nichols v. Seaboard Coastline Railway, 341 So.2d 671 (Ala. 1976) (prejudice found as a matter of law where juror brought definitions into the jury room during deliberations and copied them onto a chalkboard). We conclude that the particular circumstances of this case provide no basis for finding prejudice as a matter of law.