Court Opinion

ID: 9479113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:08:50.854899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:50.320965
License: Public Domain

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:
In this case, the defendants challenge the district court’s refusal to grant a new trial after it was discovered that a peremptorily challenged venireman accidentally served in the place of a proper member of the jury. We affirm.
I
Nicodean Mark Bilecki and Edna Mae Bilecki were charged with willful failure to file federal income tax returns. Nicodean Mark Bilecki was also charged with filing a false W-4 form. They were tried before a jury, with a magistrate presiding. On September 18,1986, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. When the jury was polled, it became apparent that an error had occurred. One member of the jury, Mr. Holt, had been peremptorily struck by the defense, but had taken a seat in the jury box in place of one of the proper jurors, Ms. Yasquez, and had sat through the four-day trial. When the mistake was discovered, the jury was dismissed and an off-the-record conference was held in chambers. Back on the record, the defense moved for a new trial, the government did not object, and the magistrate granted the motion.
On September 22, the government moved for reconsideration, arguing that the defense had waived any objection to the inadvertent seating of the stricken venireman, and requested reinstatement of the jury verdict. The magistrate denied the motion. On appeal, however, the district judge reversed the order for a new trial, and ordered reinstatement of the verdict. The district court then denied the defendants’ motion to reconsider its order. After reinstatement of the verdict and sentencing, the defendants now appeal the issue to this court.
II
The ultimate question of this case is whether, after a guilty verdict in a criminal trial, the discovery of the inadvertent seating on the jury of a venireman peremptorily challenged by the defense is grounds for a new trial. The district court, in reversing the magistrate’s decision to grant a new trial, found that there were insufficient grounds for a new trial. Generally, we review the grant or denial of a new trial only for abuse of discretion. In this case, however, the question is, more precisely, whether the district court utilized the proper legal standard in its exercise of discretion. The district court relied on United *1130States v. Cole, 796 F.2d 380 (11th Cir.1986). In Cole, as in the instant case, a peremptorily challenged juror inadvertently took the place of one of the proper jurors, and the mistake was not discovered until after the jury returned a guilty verdict. Id. at 380-81. The Eleventh Circuit rejected the defendant’s argument that the error entitled him to a new trial, and adopted a waiver rule: when the defense fails to notice and object to the inadvertent seating of a peremptorily challenged juror until after a verdict is reached, to obtain a new trial, prejudice must be shown. Id. at 381-82.
The court in Cole tied its holding to Texas cases applying such a rule. Id. at 381 (citing Acosta v. State, 522 S.W.2d 528 (Tex.Crim.App.1975) and Anderson v. State, 142 Tex.Crim.R. 384, 154 S.W.2d 482 (1941)). The Eleventh Circuit also found support in United States v. Levesque, 681 F.2d 75 (1st Cir.1982). Id. In Levesque, a second alternate was accidentally seated on the jury; in the absence of a timely objection or an impact on substantial rights, the First Circuit found no cause for reversal. 681 F.2d at 80-81. The court in Cole declined to follow two other states that had granted new trials without a showing of prejudice when challenged jurors accidentally served. Id. at 381 (citing State v. Thompson, 68 Ariz. 386, 206 P.2d 1037 (1949), and Sherman v. State, 2 Ga.App. 148, 58 S.E. 393 (1907)).
We approve of the district court’s application of Cole to the facts of this case. As noted in Levesque, 681 F.2d at 80, this approach is firmly grounded in Fed.R. Crim.P. 51 and 52. Rule 51 preserves the general requirement that objections be timely so long as an opportunity to object exists. In this case, the proper time to object was when the jury was seated; at that time, the error could easily have been corrected. We recognize that in this situation the contemporaneous objection rule places the burden on the lawyer to double-check the administrative action of the court in seating the jury. We also recognize that lawyers cannot ordinarily be expected to memorize instantaneously the faces of persons chosen to be on the jury as well as those excused. Nevertheless, it is the lawyers who make the peremptory challenges, and it is the parties they represent who are supposed to benefit from those challenges; thus, the lawyers are in the best position to notice a mistake in time to correct it. For example, defense counsel here did notice, and did call to the clerk’s attention, that the jurors were not taking their seats in the order called. Counsel should not then have disregarded his confusion; in this circumstance especially he should have followed through and asked for verification that the proper persons were seated. By foregoing that opportunity, counsel lost the chance to remedy the problem at minimal cost.
Since no timely objection was raised, we turn to Rule 52(b) which provides that courts may notice “plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights” even when no timely objection is made. Plain errors are those that “should have been apparent to the trial judge without objection, or that strike at the fundamental fairness, honesty, or public reputation of the trial.” United States v. Perez, 651 F.2d 268, 273 (5th Cir.1981). The inadvertent seating of Mr. Holt in place of Ms. Vasquez was not plain error. Mr. Holt was plainly qualified to serve as a juror. There was no basis to challenge him for cause. Mr. Holt was peremptorily challenged merely because he had been a special deputy sheriff twenty-five years earlier, even though Mr. Holt stated that he would not give law enforcement officials more credibility as witnesses. There is no basis to suppose that Mr. Holt was biased against the defendants or their case; nor is there any basis to suppose that he favored the prosecution. Mr. Holt’s participation on the jury did not affect the fundamental fairness, honesty, or public reputation of the trial, and therefore did not constitute plain error.
In reviewing for plain error, we assimilate the prejudice element of Cole and the other cases. Cole does not indicate what prejudice would be sufficient to warrant a new trial, or how such prejudice could be shown. The defendants argue that, in reality, there is no way to show prejudice since, if a juror could have been shown to be *1131improperly biased, that juror could have been challenged for cause. Nevertheless, we have no need to elaborate on prejudice as a possible justification for a new trial because the function of the prejudice element of the standard stated in Cole is adequately served by the plain error analysis above. In other words, there may be a case where the participation of a peremptorily challenged juror so undermines the fairness of a trial that it constitutes plain error and entitles a defendant to a new trial even in the absence of a timely objection; this is simply not such a case.
Ill
We now return to a preliminary matter. The defendants argued below and continue to assert on appeal that the government waived its objection to a new trial by not opposing the motion when it was made. We see no reason why the government’s failure initially to oppose a new trial justifies our reversing the district court’s action. The government filed a timely motion for reconsideration in which it presented its reasons why a new trial was not necessary. The question then is whether this motion satisfied the contemporaneous objection requirement of Rule 51. “This salutory rule has its roots in obvious considerations of finality of the criminal trial process, of judicial efficiency, and of avoiding trials by ambush.” Perez, 651 F.2d at 273. The motion for reconsideration adequately served the purpose of the rule because it gave the court the opportunity to correct itself before any waste of time or resources. Furthermore, the government gained nothing by delaying its opposition to the new trial. It is also significant that neither the magistrate, who declined to alter her original decision to grant a new trial, nor the district judge, who reversed that decision, gave credit to the defendants’ waiver argument. Since the district court consciously and, as we have held above, properly addressed the underlying issue, we are in no position now to say that the government spoke up too late. Accordingly, we reject the defendants’ argument that the government waived its objection based on the defendants’ waiver of objection to the improper juror.
IV
By reversing the magistrate’s order granting a new trial, the district court effectively denied the defendants’ motion for new trial. We review the grant or denial of a new trial only for abuse of discretion. Having already held, above, that the district court applied the proper legal standard to the fact situation before it, we now further hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in reversing the magistrate’s order for a new trial. The defendants’ convictions are
AFFIRMED.