Opinion ID: 1894244
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: relief from the verdict based upon jury misconduct

Text: Shortly after the Curtis letter surfaced, Behrens requested relief from the judgment. The trial court denied the motion and in doing so found that there was no intrinsic or extrinsic influence upon the jury verdict; that the jury had not been tampered with or influenced by juror Curtis; that there was no showing of any substantial effect on the jury verdict by Curtis, and that to allow the post-verdict innuendos suggested by Curtis' letter to set aside the jury verdict would allow his threat to be condoned and give an unacceptable taint to the jury verdict. This is solid reasoning by the trial court. A person seeking a new trial on the grounds of alleged juror misconduct has the burden in the trial court to show that the alleged misconduct materially affected his substantial rights. Carpenter v. Union Baking Co., 67 S.D. 151, 290 N.W. 322 (1940). The standard to be used in reviewing the trial court's ruling is that the trial court is in the best position to evaluate the relevance of undisclosed evidence or later discovered facts and their impact on the outcome of the trial. The trial court's denial of Behrens' motion for relief from judgment is reversible only for either an abuse of discretion or clear error of law in the exercise of its discretion. State v. Wyss, 124 Wis.2d 681, 716-718, 370 N.W.2d 745, 762 (1985); McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 553, 104 S.Ct. 845, 849, 78 L.Ed.2d 663, 670 (1984). In this case Behrens' proof failed to show any bias by juror Curtis against Behrens. Behrens' reliance upon Delfs, supra, is excessive because there the jurors' misconduct (failure to disclose prior DWIs in a DWI trial) was specifically prejudicial to the State and the State's position. The trial court held Behrens failed to establish Curtis' misconduct materially affected Behrens' substantial rights. He failed to show Curtis' misconduct affected the jury verdict, offering only sheer speculation and conjecture as to what might have been in the juror's mind. The moving party has the burden of showing the alleged misconduct materially affected his substantial rights. There is a failure to sustain that burden of proof in this case. Behrens claims that the sheriff's interview and Curtis' extortion interview with counsel for Shamburgers suggest Curtis' extortion idea was formulated before the verdict was reached. As indicated by counsel, this suggestion is then bootstrapped into seeds of disaster planted by Curtis before trial setting the stage for depriving Behrens of a fair adjudication. Behrens urges that the extortion letter is proper evidence of Curtis' prejudice and deceit in the jury's verdict. This overlooks the applicable statutory law requirements on impeachment of a verdict. The statutory basis for impeachment of a jury verdict on claimed misconduct of a juror based on testimony from a juror is governed by SDCL 19-14-7, (Rule 606(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence), which requires extrinsic as opposed to intrinsic interference with the jury deliberations: (Rule 606(b)) Juror's testimony prohibited as to deliberative processException for improper influenceAffidavits and statements. Except as otherwise provided by statute, upon an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations or to the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing him to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or concerning his mental processes in connection therewith, except that a juror may testify on the question whether extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury's attention or whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear upon any juror. Nor may his affidavit or evidence of any statement by him concerning a matter about which he would be precluded from testifying be received for these purposes. (emphasis added) SDCL 19-14-7 seeks to reach an accommodation between policies designed to safeguard the institution of trial by jury and policies designed to insure a just result in individual cases. The rule was drafted as a rule of incompetency barring a juror from testifying as to motives, methods, or mental processes by which he reached his verdict. 3 Weinstein's Evidence ¶ 606[03], [04]. This rule operates to prohibit testimony concerning certain conduct by the jurors which has no verifiable outward manifestations. Extrinsic influences are admissible and a juror is competent to testify to irregularities such as intoxication, exposure to threats, acceptance of bribes, possession of knowledge relevant to the facts in issue not obtained through the introduction of evidence but acquired prior to trial, experiments, investigations, news media, etc. Id. It is settled law in South Dakota that only extrinsic, as opposed to intrinsic, information may be used to impeach a jury verdict. Duncan v. Pennington County Housing Authority, 283 N.W.2d 546 (S.D. 1979); State v. Luna, 378 N.W.2d 229 (S.D. 1985); State v. Finney, 337 N.W.2d 167 (S.D.1983); State v. Gallegos, 316 N.W.2d 634 (S.D.1982). A common ground for a motion for a new trial is that the jury, or members of it, has not performed in the fashion expected of juries. Attacks on this ground are frequently abortive because, as will be seen, the circumstances under which the jurors themselves may testify to impeach the verdict are very limited. . . . . . The correct rule is that a juror may testify about whether extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury's attention or whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear upon any juror. A juror may not testify about statements made during the course of the jury's deliberation nor may he testify about the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing him to assent to the verdict or about his mental processes in connection with the verdict. 11 C. Wright & A. Miller Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2810. In Finney, supra at 171, in a special concurring opinion, Justice Wollman emphasized the intrinsic evidence exclusion rule, stating that in close cases, it is better `to err upon the side of exclusion rather than receipt of [such] evidence.' Behrens fails to point to any evidence of improper pre-verdict bias or prejudice by juror Curtis. The claimed evidence of Curtis' thought processes must be excluded because it was not extraneous information brought to any juror's attention. Any possible prejudice or bias juror Curtis may have had in jury deliberations were part of his own mental process and not an extraneous influence. Thus, any post-trial evidence claiming his bias or prejudice must be excluded. In United States v. Eagle, 539 F.2d 1166 (8th Cir.1976), the court stated a central purpose of the rule of juror testimony and competency is  [T]he prevention of fraud by individual jurors who could remain silent during deliberations and later assert that they were influenced by improper considerations.  (emphasis added) Id. at 1170. If there were no rule of juror testimonial incompetency, the secret thought of one juror would have the power to disturb the express conclusions of the jury as a whole. Id. For this reason courts have insisted that impeachment proof be limited to overt acts which are susceptible to the knowledge of other jurors. The court stated that the juror's actions did not go beyond the mental process of the juror and were not competent evidence to impeach and thus the verdict was upheld. Id. As recently noted in Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987), liberalization of the juror incompetency rule would weaken the system, not improve it. There is little doubt that post-verdict investigation into juror misconduct would in some instances lead to the invalidation of verdicts reached after irresponsible or improper juror behavior. It is not at all clear, however, that the jury system could survive such efforts to perfect it. Allegations of juror misconduct, incompetency, or inattentiveness, raised for the first time days, weeks, or months after the verdict seriously disrupt the finality of the process. (emphasis added). Tanner, supra, 483 U.S. at ___, 107 S.Ct. at 2747, 97 L.Ed.2d at 106. There is simply no proof in this record that juror Curtis' improper conduct and plan had any effect on the verdict. In fact, there is no proof that his plan to extort money was even conceived before he wrote the letter, which was eight weeks after the jury verdict. Under this evidence, there is nothing to show that his extortion attempt was anything more than a poorly conceived afterthought. The trial court is affirmed because there simply is no proof in this record that juror Curtis' improper conduct had any effect whatsoever on the verdict. We affirm for yet another reason. As stated by the trial court: The attempted manipulation by Mr. Curtis cannot be condoned or supported and indeed to allow this to be set aside simply on those assertions by him subsequent to the verdict would be condoning to some degree his conduct or would be creating an inference of taint subsequent to a verdict which should not be accepted by this Court. In other words, if an attempt at extortion is allowed to vacate a valid jury verdict, then we promote and reward the extortion attempt rather than exposing and punishing it. The jury verdict was reached on July 1, 1986. The letter containing the extortion threat was received almost two months later, on August 27, 1986. While the juror's conduct after the trial was reprehensible and has resulted in a criminal conviction, the trial court correctly held it was no basis for a new trial. Behrens has clearly failed to establish reversible error in the court's ruling. If he could sustain his burden of proof that he was prejudiced, then and only then should the jury verdict be vacated. In the absence of proof that the extortion plan had an extrinsic causal connection with the jury deliberations or verdict, we affirm.