Court Opinion

ID: 9789786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:41:18.578807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:24.422585
License: Public Domain

Forrest, J.
(dissenting) — Finding no misconduct, I dissent. The majority cites no case holding that a jury's reenactment of a courtroom demonstration constitutes juror misconduct requiring a new trial, nor has my research disclosed such a case. Indeed, the closest case I found, State v. Asherman3 reached the opposite conclusion. In Asherman a juror surreptitiously brought into the jury room a belt and shirt which had not been introduced in evidence as exhibits and utilized them in an experiment in which one juror tried to lift another juror lying prone on the floor and carry him 5 or 6 feet. On appeal the court, while recognizing that the introduction of the belt and shirt was improper, nonetheless agreed with the trial court's conclusion that "the experiment was conducted in a manner that has reasonably been consistent with the testimony presented to the jury and merely tested the credibility of that testimony." Asherman, at 739. In our case the items used in the experiment had been introduced into evidence so there is even less risk of prejudice.
In the great majority of jury misconduct cases, the jury acts in violation of either the court's formal written instructions or the informal instructions given at the commencement of every criminal case. The courts should be very slow to find jury *289misconduct in the absence of a violation of the court's instruction, unless the alleged misconduct is clearly prejudicial. A priori, there is no reason to believe that the reenactment here would be favorable to the State rather than favorable to the defendant.4 The jury had seen two reenactments in the courtroom. No juror brought new material or information into the jury room.5 All the jurors could make their own evaluations of the reenactment taking into account the relative size of the individuals involved in the jury room reenactment just as they could with the courtroom reenactments. While perhaps not to be encouraged, I do not find this reenactment to be misconduct in the absence of an instruction, but rather an effort to examine the evidence properly before the jury.
In reviewing a claim of juror misconduct, in this case more accurately jury misconduct, we are not concerned with the actual impact on the individual juror's mind but on an objective evaluation as to whether the conduct in question is likely to have affected the jury's verdict. The trial judge did not so find. I find no abuse of discretion, because even assuming the reenactment constitutes jury misconduct, I do not think that it compels an inference of improper influence.
Review granted at 121 Wn.2d 1015 (1993).

 193 Conn. 695, 478 A.2d 227 (1984), cert denied, 470 U.S. 1050, 84 L. Ed. 2d 814, 105 S. Ct. 1749 (1985).

In Marino v. Vasquez, 812 F.2d 499 (9th Cir. 1987) the trial court authorized the jury's reenactment to test a claim that the victim had been shot in the back of the head while sitting in a corner. Although reversed for other misconduct, nonetheless, the jury room reenactment was not criticized or held to be per se prejudicial.

See, e.g., State v. Rinkes, 70 Wn.2d 854, 425 P.2d 658 (1967) (new trial granted where a newspaper cartoon and editorial criticizing allegedly lenient decisions and liberal probation policies of certain local courts and judges were improperly included with the exhibits that entered the jury room); Steadman v. Shackelton, 52 Wn.2d 22, 322 P.2d 833 (1958) (new trial granted where the jury conducted experiments while viewing an accident scene that amounted to the taking of evidence on disputed matters out of court); State v. Briggs, 55 Wn. App. 44, 776 P.2d 1347 (1989) (new trial granted where a juror withheld information on voir dire concerning his stutter and then discussed it during deliberations in an effort to help the other jurors understand how the defendant could have committed the crime without stuttering in spite of his usual pronounced stutter).