Opinion ID: 2023647
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Juror Exposure to Plea Negotiations

Text: Next, Baird requests a new trial because, he contends, the postconviction court erred in concluding that Baird received a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, §§ 12 and 13 of the Indiana Constitution. He claims that four members of the jury were not impartial because they had been exposed to information derived from media accounts of plea negotiations that Baird had participated in before jury selection. During voir dire, prospective jurors were interviewed in panels of three. The subject of Baird's plea negotiations was mentioned to three different panels when future seated jurors were present. For example, while two jurors were present, a prospective juror stated that he had read or heard that Baird had pleaded guilty and that he would find it hard to put out of his mind. That prospective juror was excused. The court responded by asking the other two whether, despite this knowledge, they could give Baird the benefit of a presumption of innocence. Each responded in turn that they thought they could. In order to be sure, the court stressed the importance of paying attention only to the evidence presented in court and elicited affirmative responses from both jurors, indicating that they understood. The other examples of alleged juror contamination are similar. As the postconviction court noted, we considered a similar, if not the same question on direct appeal. Baird, 604 N.E.2d at 1185-86. There, we observed that the trial court thoroughly questioned each prospective juror as to the details of news reports that they may have recalled and admonished them that their verdicts must be based on the evidence produced at trial. Each juror impaneled expressed that they could try this case on the evidence, put aside any prior opinions they might have formed, and give the defendant the presumption of innocence. Id. at 1186. If Baird's current claim was not raised on direct appealand addressed by the quoted paragraphthe issue was certainly available and therefore presumably waived. To deal with that problem, Baird now characterizes his impartial jury claim as fundamental error. Fundamental error has been permitted to preserve certain egregious claims of error even if they were not objected to or were available but not raised on appeal. Perkins v. State, 541 N.E.2d 927, 929 (Ind.1989); Bailey v. State, 472 N.E.2d 1260, 1263 (Ind.1985). In Baird's case, it is not clear that error occurred at all, but surely any error cannot be viewed as fundamental. Mixed with the contention of fundamental error is a contention that Baird's trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to the seating of some of the allegedly contaminated jurors. However, counsel heard each juror declare his or her openminded intentions to the court. It is quite plausible that counsel's failure to interrogate or move to strike these jurors was based on a conscious decision that the jurors were desirable from the defense point of view. Accordingly, this claim, to the extent it is not barred by res judicata, does not present a fundamental error, particularly because the entire defense at both guilt and penalty phases focused not on whether Baird committed the killings, but rather on his sanity. Nor does the claim raise a serious contention of ineffective assistance of counsel.