Court Opinion

ID: 9461408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:14:02.696767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:03.143140
License: Public Domain

ELY, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in my Brother Wright’s majority opinion. At the same time, however, I feel obliged to express my concern over the misconduct of one of the jurors, as well as that of the District Court’s bailiff. The district judge properly and repeatedly admonished the jurors that none of them was to discuss the proceedings with any other person prior to the submission of the cause for their deliberation. Notwithstanding, the fore-*1235lady of the jury apparently defied the court’s admonition.
At a post-trial hearing on the question of jury misconduct, the forelady admitted that she asked the court’s bailiff early in the trial whether one could borrow money from a bank to buy stock. The bailiff answered to the effect that he thought not.1 Furthermore, at some other time during the trial, the forelady had telephoned a bank office to make the same inquiry.
The forelady apparently believed that the answers to her questions were in some way related to the legal issues in the trial. At the jury misconduct hearing, two of the other jurors testified that during the course of the jury’s deliberations, the forelády mentioned the bailiff’s answer to her question.2 When the district judge asked the forelady whether she had mentioned the bailiff’s opinion during deliberations, she repled that she could not remember.
*1236While the indiscretions of the forelady are deplorable and, in the light of the judge’s admonitions, inexcusable, I have concluded from my reading of the entire transcript of the post-trial hearing that the forelady’s actions did not likely affect the jury’s ultimate determinations. Both of the jurors who testified about the forelady’s conversation with the bailiff and her later mention of the conversation during jury deliberations insisted very positively that their decisions as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants on the offenses charged in the indictment were wholly unaffected by the forelady’s comments. Consequently, I agree with my Brothers that the trial court’s refusal to grant a new trial because of jury misconduct did not constitute an abuse of the court’s discretion.
I am confident that the district judge has taken such necessary measures as to assure that the court’s bailiff will not again commit such an indiscretion as he so thoughtlessly committed during the trial of this case.

. The bailiffs testimony concerning his conversation with the forelady was as follows:
“BY THE COURT:
Q. Mr. Torres, did you, during the pend-ency of this case, or its deliberations, have any conversation with Mrs. McDonald on any subject involving securities, or otherwise "akin to the subjects being discussed in the case?
A. I had a conversation, your Honor, with her, but not in regard to this matter on trial.
* * * * * *
Q. Okay. Can you now relate to us what the foreman said, what you said, and what anybody else said in that conversation.
* * st= * * *
A. She says, ‘Frank, can I ask you a question?’ She says, ‘It has nothing to do with this case at all.’
I said, ‘The answer is “No,” but go ahead.’
She said, ‘Can you go to a bank to borrow money to buy [stock]?’
And I said, T don’t know.’ I says, ‘I can tell you what happened to me about ten years or more ago. I went to my credit union and told the man I wanted to borrow 100 percent money to buy 100 percent stock. He says, “You can’t do it.” ’
I says, ‘That is all I can tell you.’ And that was the extent of that conversation at that time.”

. One juror testified as follows:
“BY THE COURT:
Q. Do you remember any statement by the jury forelady about a conversation with Frank Torres, our bailiff, on any matter of securities?
A. Yes. They were talking — I ■ didn’t hear the whole conversation. I believe they were talking about loans, taking a loan from a bank to borrow securities being illegal.
Q. Was any reference thereafter made to that conversation?
A. Yes. Later in deliberations she made a reference, ‘Well, when I was talking to Frank about it, even he said — ’
It was on some of the loans that were taken out by the defendants for the corporation, and at the time of the conversation * * * [another juror] * * * said, ‘Well, you can’t talk about the case’, you know. And she says, ‘Well, we are not. That has nothing to do with the case.’
So we dropped it. Then later in deliberations she mentioned it, and right away * * * [another juror] * * * said, ‘Well, I thought you said that had nothing to do with this case.’
She says, ‘Well, I was just referring to them borrowing money and then putting it into securities,’ you know, which to her was illegal.
Which I said, T don’t know. It was not mentioned in court. I don’t know if it is or isn’t.’
Q. In essence you said, ‘Whatever wasn’t mentioned in court we have to forget about it.’
A. Yes.”
The other juror’s testimony was similar:
“BY THE COURT:
Q. * * * What, if anything, did the forelady tell you about the possible illegality of selling securities of a company that had no assets?
A. Well, that is where the borrowing money thing came in. She had told us that — we were discussing Mr. Manning’s borrowing money to put into the company from banks, and she had a discussion before deliberation with Frank, the bailiff, about borrowing money to put into securities, was it illegal—
Q. With whom? _______ ___
A. With Frank, the [bailiff] * * * She was talking to him one day before we went into deliberations about it being illegal to borrow money to buy securities. And I told her, and * * * [another] juror also told her, ‘We don’t think you ought to be discussing that.’
She said, ‘It has nothing to do with this case.’
*1236But then during deliberations she brought that up, Frank had said such-and-such. And I told her, ‘I thought you said that had nothing to do with the case when you were discussing it.’ ”