Court Opinion

ID: 9732012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:04:57.57982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:22.533890
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring:
Any judge or attorney who has worked with a congested criminal calendar in an urban trial court can sympathize with the judge’s frustration in this case when three jurors returned from a break fifteen minutes late. Such tardiness wastes the time and resources of the judge, the attorneys, the witnesses, the other jurors, the court staff, and the people associated with the myriad cases that are awaiting their turn for trial. Although judges often have to keep jurors waiting because non-trial matters take longer than expected,1 they are nevertheless duty-bound to insist on punctuality on the part of the jurors. I also agree that trial judges must be accorded a reasonable amount of leeway to enforce punctuality requirements, without excessive micro-management from what they may perceive as the hallowed walls of appellate quasi-academia.
*998In this case, however, I am of the opinion that, so far as can be discerned from the record, the procedures utilized by the judge in this case were not only unfair to the tardy jurors but also potentially damaging to the integrity of the jury deliberations. The “trial record” reproduced in footnote 2 of the majority opinion reveals what I perceive to be fundamental flaws even in a summary proceeding. See Swisher v. United States, 572 A.2d 85, 90-94 (D.C.1990) (per curiam). The jurors were never told that they were charged with criminal contempt, or for that matter with any offense. They were never advised of their right to counsel. The judge did not accord them an opportunity to give their side of the story or to present a defense of any kind.2 Once they had been adjudicated in criminal contempt, they were not permitted to allocute as to punishment, nor were they apprised of their right to appeal. See Super.Ct.Crim.R. 32(c)(1) and (3).3
As a result of the contempt citation, each of the three jurors now has a criminal conviction. If asked about a criminal record on an employment application form, he or she is bound to disclose it. There are other obvious consequences of a criminal conviction which I need not enumerate here. Suffice it to say that the contempt adjudications which followed the judge’s abbreviated procedure may have done far more harm to these jurors than to make each of them twenty-five dollars poorer. The jurors may not have known of all the consequences of a criminal contempt adjudication, but then again they may. At the very least, they probably realized that they were in trouble and that they had not been given much of an opportunity to defend themselves or to tell the judge their side of the story.
It is true that we are not considering an appeal by the contemnors, perhaps in part because they were never told that they had the right to appeal. There are, however, potential consequences for the original parties to the case as well. During voir dire, prospective jurors are regularly asked if they have anything on their minds which would make it difficult for them to concentrate on the case. They are also routinely interrogated about any experience which they may have had with the criminal justice system. See Ridley v. United States, 134 U.S.App.D.C. 79, 81, 412 F.2d 1126, 1128 (1969) (per curiam). I have serious misgivings as to whether a juror who had just been held in criminal contempt after a proceeding of the kind that occurred here would be able to shake it all off at once and to focus his or her attention fully on the drug case against Hopkins. Moreover, it is most unlikely that a juror to whom this had happened would have been permitted to sit on the case if the incident had occurred during voir dire. Even assuming, arguen-do, that a challenge for cause would not have been sustained, counsel would still have had the opportunity to utilize their peremptory strikes to avoid retaining potentially compromised jurors.
It seems to me that the problem might perhaps have been avoided if the judge had simply warned the jurors that they must come to court on time. Summary contempt, as the majority points out, should be invoked only as a last resort. If there had been prior developments, not revealed in the appellate record, which made a warning inadequate, then a procedure more compatible with and sensitive to the basic rights of the jurors, see Swisher, supra, ought to have been utilized. If the jurors felt that they were being treated fairly, it would have been less likely that their attentiveness and conscientiousness would be impaired during the remainder of the trial. Alternatively, the judge might have reproved the jurors on the spot, with or without a warning that he would further address the matter later, and might then have instituted contempt proceedings by notice *999after the trial. See Super.Ct.Cr.R. 42(b). Had he proceeded in this manner, however, this might perhaps have left the sword of Damocles hanging over the jurors’ heads, to the detriment of their concentration on the case which they were there to try.
Nevertheless, I agree with the majority that Hopkins did not adequately preserve the issue. He neither objected to the criminal contempt citations nor requested a mistrial. He apparently took his chance on the verdict of this jury; his counsel may even have thought that the contempt adjudications might have turned the jurors against authority, and therefore, perhaps, against the prosecution. Any error which the judge may have committed vis-a-vis the jurors was not “plain error” as to Hopkins. I therefore join Judge Steadman’s opinion for the court.

. Many judges try to take some of the sting out of unwelcome impositions on a jury’s time by candidly warning jurors in advance that such eventualities may occur and that it is impossible to predict with accuracy exactly when it will be possible to resume the trial.

. For all we can determine from the record, the courthouse elevator may have broken down. See Swisher, supra, 572 A.2d at 90 & n. 14; In re Lamson, 468 F.2d 551, 552 (1st Cir.1972) (per curiam).

. It also appears that no award of costs was imposed pursuant to the Victims of Violent Crime Compensation Act, see D.C.Code § 3-414 (1988), although this omission redounded modestly to the jurors’ advantage.