Opinion ID: 605349
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of the Jurors' Declarations

Text: 11 Jurors' statements have traditionally been inadmissible to impeach the verdict. Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 115 (1987). Thus, incidents of juror misconduct or incompetence may go unreviewed and uncorrected. Id. at 118. The policy behind this seemingly harsh rule is that juries and the jury system itself needs to be protected from the inevitable pressure to impeach their verdict. Id. Fear of such treatment would chill free communication in the jury room. Id. at 119. The rule has an exception for statements alleging that a jury has been subject to extraneous influence. The jury's privacy should be violated only to redress acts which themselves violate that privacy. Id. 12 Incorporating these common law rules, the federal Rules of Evidence limit this court's ability to consider a juror's statement impeaching his or her verdict. Fed.R.Evid. 606(b); 2 Bagnariol, 665 F.2d at 884. [T]he appellate court ... must consider allegations of juror misconduct using only that evidence properly subject to consideration [under Rule 606(b) ]. Id. This rule applies to petitions for habeas corpus from state court prisoners. See Fed.R.Evid. 1101(e). See also Capps v. Sullivan, 921 F.2d 260, 262 (10th Cir.1990) (Rule 606(b) applies in federal habeas proceeding). 13 The relevant distinction is between acts that are internal to the jury and those that are external. Statements regarding matters internal to the jury process are not admissible under Rule 606(b). See Government of Virgin Islands v. Nicholas, 759 F.2d 1073, 1074-1075 (3d Cir.1985) (ability to hear or comprehend is internal); United States v. Pimentel, 654 F.2d 538, 542 (9th Cir.1981) (prejudicial attitudes concerning the legality of wire tapping was internal); United States v. Dioguardi, 492 F.2d 70, 78-80 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 873 (1974) (physical competency of a juror has been considered internal). When an incident subjects the jury to external influence, however, statements regarding it are admissible. See Gibson v. Clanon, 633 F.2d 851 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1035 (1983) (juror consultation with medical encyclopedia was external); United States v. Greer, 620 F.2d 1383, 1385 (10th Cir.1980) (when marshal provided information regarding potential sentence, court admitted juror testimony and declared mistrial); United States v. Thomas, 463 F.2d 1061 (7th Cir.1972) (newspaper in jury room was external);. 14 Appellant presents the court with declarations by jurors impeaching their verdict. These declarations describe conversations between jurors and alternates, allegedly misinterpreting the significance of a life sentence without parole. They discuss internal tension between jurors and describe perceived flaws in the deliberation process, e.g., considering the charges in the wrong order, preparing verdict forms for a lesser included offense after finding guilt on the greater offense, and discussing potential penalties during the guilt phase. The declarations also describe an incident where one juror related reading an article describing the defense lawyer as a person who only takes cases where guilt is beyond question. 15 The declarations do not allege that the jurors were given information from a person not on the jury. 3 Cf. Greer, 620 F.2d at 1385. Nor do they allege that the jury obtained extraneous information during trial from a printed source not in evidence. Bayramoglu, 806 F.2d at 882-884. The incident where a juror discussed an article about the defense counsel did not involve extraneous material. Appellant did not allege that the juror brought the article into the jury room. Nor does he state that the juror even read the article during the trial. From the described content, it is likely that the juror read the article before she was a member of this jury. This is not the sort of past experience[ ] ... directly related to the litigation ... the discussion of [which] constitute[s] extraneous information that could be used to impeach a jury's verdict. Hard v. Burlington Northern R. Co., 870 F.2d 1454, 1460 (9th Cir.1989) (juror told other jurors about civil defendant's settlement and compensation practices based on personal knowledge). Voir dire protects appellant from this type of prejudice. See Tanner, 583 U.S. at 126-127. 16 Appellant refers the court to cases where admissibility under Rule 606(b) was not considered by the court because the information was blatantly extraneous. See Hughes v. Borg, 898 F.2d 695 (9th Cir.1990); Bayramoglu v. Estelle, 806 F.2d at 887-88; Marino v. Vasquez, 812 F.2d 499, 505 (9th Cir.1987). These cases are not helpful because they do not address the relevant issue: whether the alleged incidents were external to the jury process. 17 The jurors' declarations are inadmissible under Rule 606(b).