Opinion ID: 2828565
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Permitting the Jury to Review the Video in the

Text: Jury Room Chadwell argues that permitting the jury to review the video exhibit alone in the jury room (a) was an abuse of the district court’s discretion and (b) violated his right to be present at all stages of trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43(a). We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in sending the video exhibit to the jury room for replay and that a defendant’s right to be present at all stages of the trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43(a) does not extend to a jury’s private review of evidence in the jury room. 8 UNITED STATES V. CHADWELL
The decision to send properly admitted exhibits to the jury room during deliberations is within the discretion of the trial court. DeCoito, 764 F.2d at 695. Jurors generally may examine all or part of any exhibit received into evidence and determine the weight to give that evidence during deliberations in the privacy of the jury room. Id. In this case, the district court had discretion to send the video recording to the jury room during deliberations and to provide the jury with the technology to view this properly admitted video exhibit in the privacy of the jury room. The district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the jury to examine the video exhibit during deliberations in the same private manner that the jury is entitled to view paper exhibits, photographs, and physical exhibits. See United States v. Cuozzo, 962 F.2d 945, 953 (9th Cir. 1992) (holding that properly admitted “audio tapes” can be “made available to [the] jury for review like all other evidentiary exhibits”).2 2 Other circuits allow tape players to go into the jury room to replay properly admitted evidence. See, e.g., United States v. MonserrateValentin, 729 F.3d 31, 59 (1st Cir. 2013) (“We fail to see how . . . recordings are any different from the other types of documentary evidence that are routinely reviewed by jurors during their deliberations.”); United States v. Plato, 629 F.3d 646, 652 (7th Cir. 2010) (“We have previously approved of a district court’s decision to send tape recordings and a tape player into the jury room during deliberations . . . .”); United States v. Rose, 522 F.3d 710, 715 (6th Cir. 2008) (“As we have said in response to objections to the presence of tape players in the jury room, an audio exhibit should not be relegated to muteness because it can be perused only through the use of a tape player.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Sobamowo, 892 F.2d 90, 97 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (R.B. Ginsburg, J.) (“Contrary to defendants’ contentions, the tape replaying was not a stage of trial implicating the confrontation clause or Rule 43(a).”); United States v. Zepeda-Santana, 569 F.2d 1386, 1391 (5th Cir. UNITED STATES V. CHADWELL 9 As the district court in this case correctly concluded, permitting a jury to view properly admitted exhibits is “quite different” from permitting the jury to hear a readback of actual trial testimony. Trial testimony may be read back to a jury at the district court’s discretion, but only where the “particular facts and circumstances of [a] case” favor a readback and sufficient protections are in place to avoid undue emphasis on any portion of the testimony. United States v. Hernandez, 27 F.3d 1403, 1408 (9th Cir. 1994). Compare id. at 1408–09 (holding that the district court abused its discretion in permitting the jury to take a transcript into the jury room during deliberations when the court knew the jury intended to focus its verdict on a specific portion of a transcript and did not instruct the jury not to emphasize that transcript or otherwise provide protective instructions), with United States v. Lujan, 936 F.2d 406, 411–12 (9th Cir. 1991) (per curiam) (holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by permitting the jury to take a copy of trial transcript into the jury room during deliberations when the district court took multiple precautions to avoid undue emphasis on the transcript). We stated our concerns about permitting trial testimony readback during jury deliberations in United States v. Sacco, 869 F.2d 499, 502 (9th Cir. 1989): “[I]n the privacy of the 1978) (“It is within the trial court’s discretion to decide whether evidentiary exhibits [taped conversations] should accompany the jury into the jury room.”); United States v. Williams, 241 F. App’x 681, 684 (11th Cir. 2007) (“A tape recording is just another piece of real evidence.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Graulich, 35 F.3d 574, at  (10th Cir. 1994) (unpublished table decision) (“We hold that the tapes were properly admitted in evidence and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in thereafter allowing the tapes to go to the jury room during deliberations.”). 10 UNITED STATES V. CHADWELL jury room, a jury, unsupervised by the judge, might repeatedly replay crucial moments of testimony before reaching a guilty verdict.” In this case, the video was a properly admitted exhibit which was sent to the jury room along with the other exhibits in the case—not trial testimony. See Cuozzo, 962 F.2d at 953 (“The government’s audio tapes were not testimony . . . .”). The concern for avoiding undue emphasis on particular trial testimony did not limit the discretion of the district court to send the video exhibit to the jury room “for review like all other evidentiary exhibits.” Id.
Our case law concerning the defendant’s right under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43(a)(2) to be personally present at “every trial stage” is also inapposite. We have consistently held that the replay of audio exhibits for the jury during deliberations in the courtroom with outsiders present is properly viewed as a stage of the trial at which the presence of the defendant is required. See United States v. FelixRodriguez, 22 F.3d 964, 966–67 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding that the replay of taped conversations in the courtroom with the judge, his law clerk, the court clerk, and the court reporter present, but not the defendant, violated Rule 43(a)(2)); United States v. Brown, 832 F.2d 128, 129–30 (9th Cir. 1987) (holding that the replay of court reporter’s tape recording of a prior proceeding in the courtroom with the case agent and the court clerk present, but not the defendant, violated Rule 43(a)(2)); United States v. Kupau, 781 F.2d 740, 743 (9th Cir. 1986) (holding that the replay of taped conversations in the courtroom with an FBI agent present, but not the defendant, violated Rule 43(a)(2)). UNITED STATES V. CHADWELL 11 In each of these cases, we concluded that the procedure used by the district court violated the defendant’s rights under Rule 43(a) because outsiders were present. In Kupau, we expressed “serious concerns about . . . a risk that someone associated with the prosecution, while alone with the jury after submission, could, in some fashion, influence its deliberations.” 781 F.2d at 742; see also Brown, 832 F.2d at 130 (“Any number of prejudicial events might have taken place when the case agent replayed the tape for the jury. . . . Such contact could be very subtle, such as a nod at a significant portion of the tape. It might have been unintended, or even unnoticed by the case agent himself.”); Felix-Rodriguez, 22 F.3d at 967–68 (holding that error was harmless because the “jurors were not exposed to extraneous matters”). In this case, the district court provided the jury with the technology to view the video exhibit in the privacy of the jury room with no outsiders present. Unlike the cases cited above, this procedure raised no concern that the deliberations would be tainted by outside influences. Chadwell’s reliance on United States v. Noushfar, 78 F.3d 1442 (9th Cir. 1996), amended by 140 F.3d 1244 (9th Cir. 1998), is similarly unavailing. In Noushfar, we held that Rule 43(a) was violated when the district court allowed the jury to listen in the privacy of the jury room to audio tapes that had never been presented in open court. Unlike the audio tapes in Noushfar, the video exhibit in this case was played in its entirety in open court, and “presented and tested in front of the jury, judge and defendant.” Id. The district court thus did not abuse its discretion when it sent the properly admitted video exhibit into the jury room or when it provided the jury with the technology to view the video exhibit during deliberations in the privacy of the jury 12 UNITED STATES V. CHADWELL room. Nor did the procedure used by the district court violate Chadwell’s right to be present at every stage of the trial under Rule 43(a).