Court Opinion

ID: 9805534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 18:00:34.81704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:45:47.055885
License: Public Domain

Manzanet-Daniels, J.,
dissents in part in a memorandum as follows: Because I believe that the deadlock charge in this case was unduly coercive, I would reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial.
Supplemental charges addressing a jury’s declaration of deadlock must not coerce jurors “with untoward pressure to reach an agreement” (People v Aponte, 2 NY3d 304, 308 [2004] [internal quotation marks omitted]). A court aware of the nature of the jury’s split must exercise particular care in delivering a deadlock charge (see Smalls v Batista, 191 F3d 272, 280 [2d Cir 1999]). Jurors may not be “impermissibly singled out for noncompliance with the majority” (People v Pagan, 45 NY2d 725, 727 [1978]; cf People v Kisoon, 23 AD3d 18, 23-24 [2d Dept 2005] [court’s decision not to read jury’s note verbatim but to summarize it in such a manner so as not to, inter alia, reveal the jury’s 10-2 vote for conviction, constituted prejudicial error requiring a new trial; court noted that had counsel been aware that two jurors were holding out for acquittal, he might have asked the court to include language in its response emphasizing the importance of jurors not surrendering their conscientiously held views merely for the purpose of rendering a verdict], affd 8 NY3d 129 [2007]).
The court’s initial deadlock charge was balanced, appropriately encouraging the jurors to reach agreement “if that can be done without surrendering individual judgment.” But after the jury revealed that it was split 10-2, the court summarily rejected the verdict and directed the jury to resume deliberations in an effort to reach a unanimous verdict, without including cautionary language admonishing them to adhere to their conscientiously held views. In my view, this was error.
As counsel noted in registering his objection to the charge, the court’s instruction left the minority jurors with the impression that “the only way that things [would] ever[ ] come[ ] to an end is if they follow to the will of the other ten.” The minority jurors very well may have felt “impermissibly singled out for noncompliance with the majority” (Pagan, 45 NY2d at 727). The lack of “cautionary language may well have left the minor*409ity juror with the belief that he or she had no other choice but to convince or surrender” (Smalls, 191 F3d at 280 [absence of language urging jurors not to surrender their conscientiously held beliefs, following revelation of 11-1 split, constituted reversible error]).
The fact that the jury twice requested a readback of the defense summation only bolsters the conclusion that the holdout jurors were struggling with the evidence and perhaps attempting to persuade the other jurors of their views before surrendering them for purposes of returning a verdict. If the holdouts favored the defense, they (as well as others on the jury) may have perceived the court’s denial of the request as a sign of judicial disapproval of the defense position. At the same time, the denial of the request served to deprive any jurors who were predisposed toward the defense of ammunition they might have needed to persuade their fellow jurors.
I would accordingly hold that the court’s refusal to include more balanced language in the charge constituted prejudicial error requiring reversal.