Court Opinion

ID: 9791874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:19:51.976085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:39.140022
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the court’s opinion. I write separately only to highlight how rigorous the law in Utah clearly now is on the question of contact with jurors in criminal cases, notwithstanding that I recently suggested otherwise. See State v. Larocco, 742 P.2d 89, 97-98 (Utah Ct.App.1987) (Orme, J., concurring). My view was effectively rejected in State v. Erickson, 749 P.2d 620 (Utah 1987), a decision which I also believe calls into serious question the continued precedential vitality of State v. Durand, 569 P.2d 1107 (Utah 1977).
As Erickson makes clear, any contact “more than a brief, incidental contact where only remarks of civility [are] exchanged,” 749 P.2d at 621, gives rise to a presumption of prejudice, and therefore to an order of reversal, which cannot be overcome even with testimony by the “tainted” juror that he or she was not “influenced by the encounter.” Id. Whether the juror contact is by “witnesses, attorneys, or court personnel” is irrelevant. Id. The “scope and subject matter of the conversations,” so long as more than mere pleasantries, and, in the case of witnesses, the relative importance of the witness to the prosecution, are also irrelevant. Compare *228Larocco, 742 P.2d at 97-98 (Orme, J. concurring) with Erickson, 749 P.2d 620.
The utmost care is required on the part of trial judges to ensure that contacts with jurors do not occur. To do otherwise is to risk reversal and a duplicative new trial.