Opinion ID: 18
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disruption of Trial.

Text: We turn next to the appellant's plaint that the district court abused its discretion in denying his mid-trial motion for a mistrial premised on his own disruption of the proceedings. Before exploring this plaint, we sketch the events that form the backdrop for it. After the jury entered the courtroom on the fourth day of trial, the appellant rose and began shouting in Spanish. The district court immediately ordered a marshal to shut him up and sit him down. The court then excused the jury for the remainder of the day. Before doing so, it instructed the jurors that they were not to consider the incident or any statement made by the appellant during his outburst. [4] It also instructed the jurors to keep their minds open about the merits of the case. The next day, the court repeated these instructions and conducted a voir dire in which it asked each juror whether he or she was able to remain impartial notwithstanding the outburst. All of the jurors responded affirmatively. The appellant moved for a mistrial, but the court denied the motion. The appellant did not request any further or different jury instructions. Against this backdrop, we review the district court's denial of the mistrial motion for abuse of discretion. See DeCologero, 530 F.3d at 52; United States v. Bradshaw, 281 F.3d 278, 284 (1st Cir. 2002). This deferential standard of review does not permit second-guessing for the sake of second-guessing. Only in rare instances will we, from the vantage point of a cold appellate record, substitute our judgment for the trial court's first-hand determination that the interests of justice could be served without aborting a trial already in progress. United States v. Pierro, 32 F.3d 611, 617 (1st Cir.1994). Although the appellant's vociferations were not entered into the record, the court's subsequent comments (made out of the jurors' earshot) enlighten us as to their substance: it appears that the appellant accused a government witness, Martínez, of prevaricating; accused the government of fabricating the case against him; and expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of his trial counsel. Thus, the comments themselves did not impart information prejudicial to the defense. For present purposes, then, the appellant's plaint centers on the bad impression that his loss of control may have created. Withal, the appellant is in a perilously poor position to complain about that bad impression. When a defendant has willfully disrupted the proceedings, a trial court ordinarily acts within its discretion in refusing to grant a mistrial by reason of that disruption. See, e.g., United States v. McCormac, 309 F.3d 623, 626 (9th Cir. 2002); United States v. Harris, 2 F.3d 1452, 1456 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Trevino-Rodriguez, 994 F.2d 533, 535 (8th Cir.1993); United States v. Bamberger, 456 F.2d 1119, 1128 (3d Cir.1972). Were the rule otherwise, a defendant could, in effect, ensure a mistrial by the simple expedient of disrupting the proceedings. This would reward bad behavior and, thus, create perverse incentives. See Harris, 2 F.3d at 1456 ([T]o allow a defendant by his own misconduct to terminate his trial even temporarily would be to allow him to profit for his own wrong. (quoting United States v. Chaussee, 536 F.2d 637, 641 (7th Cir.1976))). Even so, such unruliness cannot simply be ignored. A trial court confronted by such an outburst should take proper steps to neutralize any untoward effects that the outburst might have on the jury. See, e.g., McCormac, 309 F.3d at 626. Here, the district court's timely and repeated instructions to the jury, coupled with its thorough vetting of the jurors to ensure that their impartiality had not been compromised, sufficed to safeguard the appellant's right to a fair trial. Thus, we find no abuse in the district court's refusal to declare a mistrial because of the outburst.