Opinion ID: 1545753
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Shackling of Appellant's legs

Text: Appellant next asserts that he is entitled to a new penalty hearing because the jury may have seen his leg shackles when it returned with its verdict in the guilt phase. Some background information is helpful in evaluating this claim. During pretrial discussions, the trial court notified defense counsel that, for security reasons, it would direct that Appellant's leg shackles remain on during the proceedings. Therefore, the court instructed counsel to position an item in front of these restraints so that they would not be visible to the jury. See N.T. Oct. 30, 2006, at 143-44; see also N.T. Jan. 29, 2007, at 45-46 (reflecting defense counsel's satisfaction, during voir dire, that the shackles had been shielded from view by potential jurors). During jury selection and trial, although Appellant was brought into court in handcuffs and leg shackles, the handcuffs, and sometimes the shackles as well, were removed before the jury entered the courtroom. See, e.g., N.T. Feb. 5, 2007, at 11 (reflecting that Appellant was brought into court and taken out of handcuffs and shackles). On Friday, February 9, 2007, the jury received the court's guilt-phase instructions and retired to deliberate. Later that day, it returned to the courtroom and delivered its guilt-phase verdict. After the trial court dismissed the jury for the day, the following exchange took place: [Defense counsel]: I would like to put on the record that the defendant appears in leg shackles. THE COURT: [Counsel], you certainlyfor the record, there's a trial bag between him and counsel table and all through this I have given you the opportunity to screen him and you certainly could have done that. [Appellant]: This just happened. [Defense counsel]: This was kind of fast. [Appellant]: I had no option. They refused to take them off. They made me sit down with them on. THE COURT: Well, they're not visible through the bag I don't believe, but what I would suggest is next week please take steps to screen the table. N.T. Feb. 9, 2007, at 98-99. Appellant now contends that he was prejudiced during the sentencing phase because the jurors saw the shackles when they returned to announce their guilt-phase verdict. [23] He relies upon the district court's conclusion, in vacating his first death sentence, that the use of visible shackles during his first penalty phase violated his due process rights. See Laird v. Horn, 159 F.Supp.2d at 101 (collecting cases). That court explained that `the sight of shackles . . . might have a significant effect on the jury's feelings about the defendant,' and that the use of such restraints `is itself something of an affront to the very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings that the judge is seeking to uphold.' Id. at 100 (quoting Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 344, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1061, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970)); see also Deck v. Missouri, 544 U.S. 622, 629, 125 S.Ct. 2007, 2012, 161 L.Ed.2d 953 (2005) (The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the use of physical restraints visible to the jury absent a trial court determination, in the exercise of its discretion, that they are justified by a state interest specific to a particular trial.). Allen and its progeny addressed the use of physical restraints during the guilt phase of trial; Deck extended the Allen rule to the penalty phase based on several salient legal considerations articulated in Allen that the Court deemed to apply equally within a sentencing framework, including the possibility that restraints might burden the defendant's right to counsel and the need to maintain dignified judicial proceedings. See id. at 630-32, 125 S.Ct. at 2013-14. [24] With regard to capital sentencing in particular, the Court emphasized the acute need for reliable decisionmaking, the prospect that the appearance of the offender in shackles might suggest to the jury that the authorities consider him a danger to the community (a statutory aggravator in some jurisdictions), the possibility that the sight of the restraints could adversely affect the jury's perception of the defendant's character, and the impact that all of these factors might have on the jury's ability accurately to weigh all relevant considerations which are often unquantifiable and elusive when it decides between life and death. Id. at 632-33, 125 S.Ct. at 2014. The circumstances forming the basis for the present claim are distinguishable from those in which the federal courts have found constitutional violations. Here, it is not clear from the record that the jury was able to see the shackles even a single time. The defense had generally complied with the court's directive to interpose a visual barrier so that the jury would not be able to see them. The only point at which the jury may have had a glimpse of the shackles is when it returned to deliver its guilt-phase verdict. At that time, moreover, the trial court noted the presence of a trial bag which had, in its observation, sufficiently shielded the shackles from view. Furthermore, even if the jury briefly saw the leg shackles at that time, this single incident does not raise the same kinds of concerns as those articulated by the Supreme Court in Deck, as it was an isolated instance that was temporally separated from the penalty phase, which did not begin until three days later. If we were to conclude that prejudice must be presumed under such circumstances, we would extend Deck 's holding beyond its supporting foundation. [25]