Opinion ID: 770389
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Complexity of Case

Text: 17 Defendants first contend that juror questioning should be reserved for complex cases, and maintain that their case was not sufficiently complex. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that a case should present sufficiently extraordinary or compelling circumstances to justify questioning of witnesses. See Ajmal, 67 F.3d at 14; see also Sutton, 970 F.2d at 1006 (relying on factual complexity of case as factor in conclusion that trial court did not err in allowing juror questioning). Ajmal found an abuse of discretion in a district court's decision to invite juror questioning when such questioning was not necessitated by the factual intricacies of th[e] banal drug conspiracy and was not prompted by the urging of the jurors themselves. Id. at 14-15. The court was not swayed by the fact that the district court followed procedures previously set out by the Second Circuit for juror questioning because such measures alone cannot purge the harm caused by the extensive juror questioning in the case at hand. Id. at 15 (To hold otherwise would sanction juror questioning of witnesses in any circumstance, so long as appropriate prophylactic measures are adopted. We cannot accept such a proposition.). Defendants in the present case point out that the government's evidence involved only eyewitness recollection, testimony concerning conversations with defendants, and simple forensic reports; defendants simply presented an alibi defense. 18 The government has not suggested the case was complex. Instead, the government appears to argue that the important question is whether the questioning prejudiced a party in a way that affected the outcome of the litigation. See United States v. Gray, 897 F.2d 1428, 1429 (8th Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Bascope-Zurita, 68 F.3d 1057, 1064 (8th Cir. 1995) (focusing on absence of argument by defendant that he was prejudiced by questioning; not raising or addressing question of complexity of case involving cocaine conspiracy). 19 Although this court has not addressed the propriety of juror questioning, we have evaluated the practice of questioning by judges. In that context, we have indicated that a trial judge may be warranted in asking questions in a trial for three reasons: (1) for clarification in a lengthy, complex trial; (2) for clarification if the attorneys are unprepared or obstreperous, or if the facts are becoming muddled and neither side is succeeding at attempts toclear them up; and (3) if a witness is difficult, if a witness' testimony is unbelievable and counsel fails to adequately probe, or if the witness becomes inadvertently confused. See United States v. Slone, 833 F.2d 595, 597 (6th Cir. 1987). While there are risks in the jurors' perception of judge-initiated questions, such questions may be appropriate to get to the truth of the matter. Complexity is only one reason why a judge might reasonably pose questions to a witness. The rationale behind allowing questions by judges also operates in the context of questions by jurors, albeit with greater possible risks. 1 20 While juror questioning should be a rare practice, there will be occasions when a district court may determine that the potential benefits to allowing such questions will outweigh the risks. Even cases that could not be described as complex may occasionally warrant questions by jurors, although we think that the balance of risks to benefits is more likely to weigh in favor of juror questions in complex cases. 21 With respect to complexity, defendants have argued only that juror questions should be reserved for complex cases. As the above discussion reveals, while the complexity of a case should be one consideration, an absence of complexity should not render juror questioning per se reversible error.