Opinion ID: 2059026
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Supplementary Jury Instructions Requiring Continued Deliberations.

Text: Defendants argue that the court's supplementary instructions requiring the jury to continue deliberating after it had reported a deadlock constitute reversible error because of their coercive effect on the deliberations of the jury. Although the trial justice exceeded the language from the American Bar Association charge adopted by this Court in State v. White, Me., 285 A.2d 832, 838 (1972), no objection was raised to the charge at trial, and we fail to find that it rises to the level of manifest error. Having been instructed that they were under no time constraints and that they might have to deliberate through the supper hour, if that becomes necessary, the jury retired at 3:00 P.M. At 8:30 P.M., after one interlude for a reading of testimony, the jury sent a note to the presiding justice saying that they had voted several times, the final vote was 7-5 and all the jurors had stated that they would not change their minds under any circumstances. At this point the presiding justice called the jury back. He repeated the essence of the A.B.A. approved instructions, as follows: You have a duty to consult with one another and to deliberate with a view of reaching a verdict if it can be done without sacrificing individual judgment. Each of you must decide the case for yourself, but only after an impartial consideration of the evidence with your fellow jurors. In the course of your deliberations and discussions, you should not hesitate to re-examine, re-evaluate and reassess your own position and views, and change your opinion if you are convinced that that opinion is erroneous. You should not surrender an honest belief or conviction as to the weight or effect of the evidence solely because of the opinion of your fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict. The statement from this note says that all of the jurors have verbally stated that they will not change their minds under any circumstances. I am assuming that you mean under the present state of your discussions. He then continued: I am going to require you to continue deliberating, continue discussing the evidence in this case, because if you should fail to reach a decision, this case is left open and unresolved. Another trial would be a heavy burden for all parties concerned. There's no reason to believe that the case can be tried again any better than it has been. No objection was raised to these instructions, and the jury returned a guilty verdict at 9:50 P.M. At the outset we note that one hour or more is not such an unreasonably short time for a divided jury to reach a verdict that a finding of coercion is mandated on the basis of the time alone. It should also be noted that while State v. White, supra , disapproved the use of what is known as the Tuey-Allen charge, it did not hold that any deviation from the A.B.A. standards was coercive. The issue in this case is whether these instructions are in fact coercive and productive of manifest error. Under the A.B.A. standards a deadlocked jury may be sent out for further deliberations as it is believed the jury should not be permitted to avoid a reasonable period of deliberations merely by repeated indications that it is unable to agree. A.B.A. Standards Relating to the Administration of Criminal Justice, Trial by Jury § 5.4 (Commentary, 1968). Moreover, the standards, as adopted in State v. White, supra , provide that the court may require the jury to continue deliberating and may repeat the approved instructions, as long as the court does not require deliberation for an unreasonable amount of time. [3] More than five hours is not an unreasonable amount of time for deliberation in a complex murder trial. Therefore, the procedure employed by the justice was not coercive and would not merit a reversal. In examination of the charge itself, we proceed on the premise that where no objection has been raised at trial to the instructions given by the court, the Law Court's review will be limited to whether the offending instruction when viewed with the charge as a whole constituted highly prejudicial error tending to produce manifest injustice. State v. Doughty, Me., 399 A.2d 1319, 1326 (1979). The charge in question included no imposition of a deadline on the jury, a factor which has been found impermissibly coercive by this Court. State v. Stevens, Me., 343 A.2d 592 (1975). It did include a variation of the elements of the now rejected Tuey-Allen charge. The offending language in Tuey-Allen instructed the jury that there was no reason to believe that the case would ever be submitted to a better jury and urged minority dissenters to reconsider their positions. Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501-02, 17 S.Ct. 154, 157, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896); Commonwealth v. Tuey, 62 Mass. (8 Cush.) 1 (1851). Although the Tuey-Allen instructions were disapproved of by the Court in State v. White, 285 A.2d at 837, that Court refused to find them coercive per se. Id. at 837. In the instant case the justice admonished the jury that, if they should fail to reach a verdict, the case would be left open and unresolved, placing a heavy burden on all the parties. [4] Urging the jury, split 7-5, in these terms to try to reach a verdict is much less coercive than the Tuey-Allen insistence that one or two hold-out jurors reevaluate their position in light of the fact that the evidence had been so persuasive to their fellow jurors. Moreover, the charge before us is proper in substantial part and includes the A.B.A. approved language that the jurors should not surrender any belief or conviction as to the weight or effect of the evidence solely because of the opinion of your fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict. Therefore, the charge in its entirety is at worst ambiguous. Whatever the coercive effect of the Tuey -like aspects, they are diluted by the contradictory statements in the A.B.A. charge, and it cannot be said that such a charge is highly prejudicial error tending to produce manifest injustice.