Court Opinion

ID: 9672388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:53:55.836005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:15.774683
License: Public Domain

VOGEL, Justice
(dissenting).
Except for those portions of the opinion discussing the substantive crime involved, I dissent. Specifically, I believe that syllabus ¶ 5 misstates the constitutional law involved and leads to an erroneous result.
We are agreed that jeopardy had attached at the time the mistrial was declared. In a jury trial jeopardy attaches when a jury is impaneled and sworn, and in a nonjury trial jeopardy attaches when the court begins to hear evidence. Serfass v. United States, 420 U.S. 377, 95 S.Ct. 1055, 43 L.Ed.2d 265 (1975). We are agreed that a defendant may be subjected to a second trial under certain limited circumstances even after jeopardy has once attached. Thus retrials are permitted where juries have been unable to reach verdicts [United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 579, 6 L.Ed. 165 (1824)], and where defendants have asked for a mistrial and obtained it [United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964)], and where convictions are reversed on appeal. Beyond this, and ever since Perez, supra, courts have been allowed to declare mistrials and yet try the defendant anew only in cases where “manifest necessity” requires or “where the ends of justice would otherwise be defeated.” The Supreme Court has very properly declined “to formulate rules based upon categories of circumstances which will permit or preclude retrial” [United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 480, 91 S.Ct. 547, 555, 27 L.Ed.2d 543, 554 (1971)], and it has used the word “discretion” to describe the powers of the trial court. But this kind of discretion surely is one of the most limited known to the law. It is an extremely narrow discretion to be “used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes.” United States v. Perez, supra, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 579, at 580, quoted in United States v. Jorn, supra, 400 U.S. 470, at 481, 91 S.Ct. 547.
It requires “scrupulous exercise” [Jorn, at p. 485, 91 S.Ct. 547] and is always subject to close scrutiny on review. United States v. Walden, 448 F.2d 925 (4th Cir. 1971), affirmed on rehearing en banc by an equally divided Court, 458 F.2d 36 (1972), cert. denied 409 U.S. 867, 93 S.Ct. 165, 34 L.Ed.2d 116 (1972), 410 U.S. 969, 93 S.Ct. 1436, 35 L.Ed.2d 705 (1973).
In fact, the case law seems to indicate that the “discretion” will be upheld only where a reversal of a conviction would be compelled if the case proceeded to a conclusion. Certainly this was true in Illinois v. Somerville, 410 U.S. 458, 93 S.Ct. 1066, 35 L.Ed.2d 425 (1973), where the defect in the indictment was incurable, and the Court said that the proceeding was one which “at best would have produced a verdict that could have been upset at will by one of the *265parties.” 410 U.S. 458, at 471, 93 S.Ct. 1066, at 1074. This is not such a cáse.
The “discretion” of the trial judge does not extend to cases where the trial judge, no matter how conscientiously, comes to an erroneous belief that there is a fatal jurisdictional defect in the proceedings.
“. . . the trial judge must still take care to assure himself that the situation warrants action on his part foreclosing the defendant from a potentially favorable judgment by the tribunal.” Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, at 486, 91 S.Ct. 547, at 557.
“. . where the judge, acting without the defendant’s consent, aborts the proceeding, the defendant has been deprived of his ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal’ ” Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, at 484, 91 S.Ct. 547, at 557, quoting from Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 689, 69 S.Ct. 834, 837, 93 L.Ed.2d 974, 978 (1949).
The majority opinion tries to force the facts of this case into either the mold of “manifest necessity” [by stating that this court “has not indicated a departure from the Bronkol case”1 and that “the law announced in Bronkol has not been modified”], or into the mold of a dismissal consented, to by the defendants [by stating that the defendants’ attorney “indirectly prompted the court to declare a mistrial, and when it did, the attorney failed to object” and that the statements of defendants’ counsel “about not having made a disposition of the trial underway could be considered an objection which prompted the court to proceed as it did”].
Like the foot of the ugly stepsister which could not be squeezed into Cinderella’s slipper, this case cannot be forced into the Somerville mold or the consent mold.
The facts of the present case appear to be comparable to those in United States v. Walden, supra. In Walden, the trial judge terminated the trial of eleven defendants after two jurors saw one or more of the defendants being led from the courtroom in handcuffs during a lunch recess. The trial judge mistakenly interpreted the incident as disqualifying the jurors, which created a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. The appellate court considered these facts in the light of the Jorn decision and held that even though the judge acted out of concern for the best interests of the defendants, his abortion of the trial was without manifest necessity and constituted an abuse of discretion. Walden, 448 F.2d at 928-929.
The appellate court stated:
“Jorn is apparently the penultimate if not the end product of a ‘trend toward reducing the occasions on which criminal defendants may be made to “run the gauntlet twice.” ’ . . . Jorn is, we think, a significant departure from prior controlling case law.”
The court noted that as a result of Jorn, “unquestionably the trial judge’s ‘sound discretion’ to abort a trial has been considerably narrowed” and that Jorn “all but eliminates trial judge motivation as an element to be considered in determining whether an aborted trial bars reprosecution.” Walden, 448 F.2d at 928.
“Jorn put upon [the trial judge] a duty to exhaust all other reasonable possibilities before deciding to foreclose defendants’ option to proceed. The trial judge must make a ‘scrupulous exercise of judicial discretion.’ Jorn, at 485, 91 S.Ct. 547. The scrupulous exercise of that discretion means that he must seek out and consider all avenues of cure to avoid trial abortion.” Walden, 448 F.2d at 929.
The appellate court in Walden held that the trial judge abused his discretion by not seeking a “cure” such as continuing the trial with the twelve remaining jurors. In the present case, the trial judge erred in failing to exhaust all other reasonable possibilities before declaring a mistrial. One possibility, continuing the trial after arraignment, was not considered in depth. Nor was the possibility considered of enter*266ing a plea of not guilty for the defendants and then proceeding. In fact, there was no need to do anything, because the omission of an arraignment was a mere irregularity, as I show below.
I
The Bronkol case stated the law of North Dakota from 1896 to 1943. Bronkol held that arraignment was jurisdictional. But in 1943, as the majority opinion notes, the Legislature adopted Section 29-1309, N.D. R.C., which stated that failure to arraign was a mere irregularity. The statute effectively invalidated the holding of Bronkol. True, the statute was later superseded by the adoption of Rule 10, N.D.R.Crim.P., but that rule, except for two immaterial changes,2 is identical to Rule 10, F.R. Crim.P., under which failure to arraign is a mere irregularity. United States v. Hart, 477 F.2d 1087, 1089 (10th Cir. 1972); Garland v. Washington, 232 U.S. 642, 34 S.Ct. 456, 58 L.Ed. 772 (1914). As we recognized in In re Estate of Elmer, 210 N.W.2d 815, 820 (N.D.1973), when we took a rule from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we did so
“with knowledge of the interpretations placed on it by the Federal courts. Although we are not compelled to follow those interpretations, they are highly persuasive and, in the interest of uniform interpretation, we should be guided by them.”
I conclude that the holding of State v. Bronkol has been invalidated, first by statute and then by rule, ever since 1943.
The trial judge erred if he relied upon State v. Bronkol as good law. The note to Rule 10, N.D.R.Crim.P., correctly states that failure to arraign is a mere irregularity. Mistrials cannot be justified by mere irregularities.
I further conclude that an erroneous interpretation of existing State law by a court does not fall within the very narrow and limited discretion available to trial judges, and that the declaration of the mistrial in the present case therefore fits into the mold of the Jorn case and cannot be forced into the mold of the Somerville case, where there was a genuine jurisdictional defect in the proceedings.
No doubt the trial judge believed he was acting in the interests of the defendants. But his declaration of a mistrial necessarily subjected them “to the same personal strain and insecurity regardless of the motivation underlying the trial judge’s action.” United States v. Jorn, supra, 400 U.S. 470, at 483, 91 S.Ct. 547, at 556; United States v. Walden, supra, 448 F.2d 925, at 928.
II
Of course, if a defendant requests or consents to the mistrial, he is precluded from claiming double jeopardy. [But see United States v. Dinitz, 492 F.2d 53, affirmed en banc per curiam 504 F.2d 854 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. granted 420 U.S. 1003, 95 S.Ct. 1445, 43 L.Ed.2d 761 (1975), holding that a motion for mistrial by a defendant, made necessary by the ejection of his lead counsel from the trial, did not constitute a bar to a plea of double jeopardy; and United States v. Walden, supra, 448 F.2d 925, at 930, rejecting a flat rule that a motion for mistrial constitutes a waiver of a plea in bar.] But neither silence nor irrelevant remarks can be twisted into consent. Here, the defendants did nothing, either standing mute or suggesting the obvious to the court, namely, that the present trial had not been disposed of.3 I cannot join in the suggestion that such equivocal conduct is equivalent to consent to a mistrial. It is, in my view, conduct indicative of nonconsent. *267What is required in order to constitute consent of the defendants is an active, overt, explicit, and voluntary request for or agreement to the declaration of a mistrial. “Failure to object” is not enough. Defendants had no duty to assist the prosecution in creating an error-free trial.
The law simply is that there is double jeopardy, in the absence of “manifest necessity” or impending defeat of the ends of public justice, unless the defendant consents. “Consent” is the word used in United States v. Jorn, supra, and consent, in this context, is not to be deduced from silence.
III
In my view, the majority decision perpetuates and magnifies the error made in State v. Allesi, 216 N.W.2d 805 (N.D.1974). It violates the “policy of avoiding multiple trials [which] has been regarded as so important that exceptions to the principle have been only grudgingly allowed.” United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 95 S.Ct. 1013, 1022, 43 L.Ed.2d 232 (1975). In fact, the unconstitutionality of the second trial in this case, it seems to me, is even more obvious than in Allesi, where the defendant’s motion for an advisory verdict was held by the majority to have “brought about” the declaration of the mistrial.
IV
To say that mistrial and retrial “did not unduly harm” the defendants and in fact benefited them by disclosing the State’s case is to (1) disregard their right to have their trial “completed by a particular tribunal” and not be subjected to the strain and insecurity of a second trial, and (2) adopt the same arguments made by the dissenters in Jorn, supra, 400 U.S. 470, at 491, 91 S.Ct. 547, where the arguments were rejected by the majority, as they should be rejected here.
CONCLUSION
In my view, the trial court went beyond its very narrow field of discretion when it erroneously held that failure to arraign created a jurisdictional error in the proceedings requiring a mistrial. Failure to arraign is a mere irregularity under Rule 10, N.D.R.Crim.P. Therefore, there was no manifest necessity to declare a mistrial and the ends of public justice were not served by the declaration of the mistrial. The defendants did not consent to the declaration of a mistrial, and each of them had a “valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal.” Wade v. Hunter, supra; United States v. Jorn, supra.
Each appellant “was subjected to the burden of two trials for the same offense; he was twice put to the task of marshaling his resources against those of the State, twice subjected to the ‘heavy personal strain’ which such an experience represents” [Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 95 S.Ct. 1779, 1787, 44 L.Ed.2d 346 (1975)], and all with*268out any necessity, manifest or otherwise. I believe that the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 13 of the North Dakota Constitution have been violated.

. State v. Bronkol, 5 N.D. 507, 67 N.W. 680 (1896).

. The North Dakota rule adds a provision for informing a defendant who appears at the arraignment without counsel of his right to counsel as provided in Rule 44. It also adds complaints to indictments and infor-mations as charging documents.

. The transcript contains only these statements of defense counsel on this point:
“MR. SCHAUSS: I think the position of the Defendants is not that we desire an arraignment, we do not waive the defect of the trial having commenced without an *267arraignment and whatever the action the Court takes we would reserve our right to object to it or raise any legal questions concerning it which might arise.
“MR. SCHAUSS: Your Honor, now I don’t know we are now in the middle of a trial. Witnesses had been sworn, testimony taken before an arraignment can be had I think the Court on that has to make some disposition of this trial. I don’t think we can interrupt a trial in the middle, arraign the Defendants and then start all over again.
“THE COURT: I agree with you fully with that respect Mr. Schauss.

“MR. SCHAUSS: Your Honor at this time I will have to enter an objection to the arraignment of these parties for the reason that the trial has commenced, that evidence has been taken in the trial, testimony of witnesses and that no disposition has been made of that. This is not a proper time or place in the trial to have an arraignment of the parties until some disposition is made of the other of the trial which was originally started.
“THE COURT: It was my intention to declare a mistrial in the first trial.”