Court Opinion

ID: 9782622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:00:22.746765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.610171
License: Public Domain

Hardesty, C J.,
with whom Saitta, J., agrees, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority with respect to the impropriety of defense counsel’s closing argument. However, for two reasons, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the circumstances at trial created a manifest necessity for a mistrial. First, the district court failed to make the type of findings that would entitle its ruling to the “special respect” granted by the majority. Second, the district court failed to consider a standard instruction to disregard the improper argument, an instruction that this court has repeatedly held cures the type of error that occurred in this case.

Deference

The United States Supreme Court explained in Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497 (1978), that in the context of a mistrial granted over a defendant’s objection, the level of deference to the district court’s ruling will depend on the case. The strictest scrutiny is applied where the “prosecutor requests a mistrial in order to buttress weaknesses in his evidence.” Id. at 507. On the other end of the spectrum, greater deference is granted where the trial judge believes that the jury is unable to reach a verdict. Id. at 509. Likewise, ‘ ‘a trial judge’s decision to declare a mistrial based on his assessment of the prejudicial impact of improper argument is entitled to great deference.” Id. at 514. In other words, when a district court’s mistrial “determination is based on his or her own observations and personal *717assessment that a fair trial would be impossible, that view must be given special deference.” U.S. v. Chapman, 524 F.3d 1073, 1082 (9th Cir. 2008). This is mainly because the trial judge “is far more conversant with the factors relevant to the determination than any reviewing court can possibly be.” Washington, 434 U.S. at 514 (internal quotations omitted). The majority concludes that the district court’s ruling in this case is entitled to special deference. I disagree.
This court has repeatedly advised that in order for a district court’s ruling to receive deference on appeal, the district court must make its findings explicit on the record. See, e.g., Knipes v. State, 124 Nev. 927, 931-32, 192 P.3d 1178, 1181 (2008); State v. Ruscetta, 123 Nev. 299, 304, 163 P.3d 451, 455 (2007); State v. Rincon, 122 Nev. 1170, 1176-77, 147 P.3d 233, 237-38 (2006). It is equally well established that this court’s review does not extend beyond the record. Jacobs v. State, 91 Nev. 155, 158, 532 P.2d 1034, 1036 (1975); Anderson v. State, 81 Nev. 477, 482, 406 P.2d 532, 534 (1965). Noticeably absent from the record in this case is any statement by the district court that its ruling was based on its “own observations” or “personal assessment that a fair trial would be impossible.” The district court pronounced its ruling based on its determinations that (1) the case was close, (2) defense counsel’s argument was improper, and (3) the curative instruction proposed by the defense — that the jury was not to infer that defense counsel had seen the videotape — was inadequate because it required the jury to make a “fantastic leap of logic.” At no point did the district court state that its ruling was based on its observations of the demeanor or reactions of the jurors, the atmosphere or feeling in the courtroom, or any other fact that was not otherwise apparent from the cold record.
The majority infers that defense counsel’s actions must have “had a visible effect on the jury.” The district court, however, made no statements to that effect. At no point did the district court make a finding that the jury visibly reacted to defense counsel’s conduct. Nor was that point argued by the State. For this court to simply assume that such evidence existed goes beyond “special respect” and renders this court’s review meaningless. It is not the function of this court to simply presume that there was a sufficient factual basis for a district court’s ruling; that basis must be stated on the record. Where, as here, it is not, the district court’s ruling is not entitled to special deference.

Curative instruction

In addition to the reasoning set forth above, I dissent because in my view the district court failed to consider the most reasonable solution: instructing the jury to disregard defense counsel’s improper argument.
*718A mistrial is not dictated by manifest necessity where the district court failed to consider or apply a less drastic alternative. See Johnson v. Karnes, 198 F.3d 589, 596 (6th Cir. 1999) (“We further find it significant that the trial court judge failed to consider less drastic alternatives, but instead immediately decided that a mistrial was appropriate.”); Harpster v. State of Ohio, 128 F.3d 322, 330 (6th Cir. 1997) (concluding that there is no manifest necessity for a mistrial where curative instruction would have protected against juror bias); Brady v. Samaha, 667 F.2d 224, 230 (1st Cir. 1981) (concluding that the trial judge erred in failing to “consider any alternatives to a mistrial, such as severance or curative instructions”); Dunkerley v. Hogan, 579 F.2d 141, 147-48 (2d Cir. 1978) (concluding that while the trial judge did not act “impetuously,” the fact that there was at least one alternative to the mistrial meant that it was not dictated by manifest necessity); Jones v. Com., 400 N.E.2d 242, 251 (Mass. 1980) (“Appellate deference will be accorded the trial judge’s discretionary determination that ‘manifest necessity’ exists only if the record reflects that the trial judge gave reasoned consideration to the various available alternatives . . . before declaring a mistrial.”); State v. Bertrand, 587 A.2d 1219, 1226 (N.H. 1991) (directing the lower courts to “exhaust alternatives” before declaring a mistrial).
During argument on the motion for mistrial, defense counsel proposed a curative instruction stating that “you are to infer that no one has seen the videotape or that defense counsel has no personal knowledge of the videotape.” The district court declined the instruction, stating:
I do not think that limiting instruction cures the issue. I cannot in good conscience instruct the jury that no one knows what’s on it when it is in fact a statement of your client. I can’t ask them to make such a fantastic leap of logic that you don’t know what’s on it when you’ve already — (A) it’s your own client’s statement and (B) you told them it’s devastating, absolutely devastating.
The district court may have had good reason to reject this particular instruction. Unfortunately, however, the district court never considered the possibility of fashioning another instruction, or of simply instructing the jury to disregard defense counsel’s comment. In addressing this issue, the majority concludes that “[o]n this record, it appears the collective judgment of those involved — the prosecution, the defense, and the trial judge — was that a simple instruction to disregard the improper argument would not be effective.” But there is nothing in the record to support that conclusion.1 And therein lies *719the problem: the absence of any finding by the trial judge forces the majority to arrive at a conclusion based on pure speculation.
This court has stated countless times that we presume that juries will follow jury instructions. See, e.g., Summers v. State, 122 Nev. 1326, 1333, 148 P.3d 778, 783 (2006); Allred v. State, 120 Nev. 410, 415, 92 P.3d 1246, 1250 (2004), limited on other grounds by Knipes v. State, 124 Nev. 927, 935, 192 P.3d 1178, 1183-84 (2008); Leonard v. State, 117 Nev. 53, 66, 17 P.3d 397, 405 (2001) (citing Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225 (2000)). Furthermore, our caselaw is replete with instances where we have relied on this very principle and declined to find that improper statements by the prosecution constituted reversible error because the district court instructed the jury to disregard them. See, e.g., Valdez v. State, 124 Nev. 1172, 1192, 196 P.3d 465, 478 (2008) (“Although the comment was improper, we conclude that there was no prejudice because the district court sustained [the defendant’s] objection and instructed the jury to disregard the comment.”); Pantano v. State, 122 Nev. 782, 793, 138 P.3d 477, 484 (2006) (improper statements by prosecutor were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because “the district court sustained the defense’s objection and instructed the jury to disregard the statements, which supplied [the defendant] with an adequate remedy”); Greene v. State, 113 Nev. 157, 170, 931 P.2d 54, 62 (1997) (although prosecutor’s statement was “patently improper,” there was no prejudice because district court sustained the objection and admonished the jury), overruled on other grounds by Byford v. State, 116 Nev. 215, 235, 994 P.2d 700, 713 (2000); Silva v. State, 113 Nev. 1365, 1375, 951 P.2d 591, 597 (1997) (“‘[E]ven when the objectional inferences might have been found prejudicial, it has been held that instructions to the jury to disregard them sufficiently cured the error.’ ” (quoting Namet v. United States, 373 U.S. 179, 187 (1963))). See also Miller v. State, 121 Nev. 92, 99, 110 P.3d 53, 58 (2005) (“[I]nstruct[ing] the jury to disregard improper statements, thus remedies] any potential for prejudice.”); Butler v. State, 120 Nev. 879, 907, 102 P.3d 71, 90 (2004) (Gibbons, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (same).
Here, not only did the district court fail to instruct the jury to disregard defense counsel’s statement, but it failed to even consider such an instruction. The district court’s failure to consider this simple measure leads me to conclude that the district court did not “exercise[ ] ‘sound discretion’ in declaring a mistrial.” Washington, 434 U.S. at 514. Furthermore, the fact that there was “at least one alternative to a mistrial” meant that it was not dictated by manifest ne*720cessity. Dunkerley, 579 F.2d at 148. “[T]t would be an unreasonable application of the law, as established by Supreme Court precedent, to conclude that manifest necessity existed for a mistrial in this case . . . [because] a simple corrective instruction would have sufficiently protected against juror bias.” Harpster, 128 F.3d at 330. By holding that there was a manifest necessity for a mistrial in this case, the majority essentially holds that instructions to disregard effectively cure improper argument by the prosecution, but fail to do so when the error is made by the defense. I cannot accept that reasoning.
For these two reasons — the district court did not make the type of findings that would entitle its ruling to special deference and it failed to consider a simple curative instruction to disregard — I cannot conclude, as the majority does, that the district court’s decision to grant a mistrial was dictated by manifest necessity. Therefore, I would grant the petition.

The majority confuses the standard instruction that counsel’s arguments are not evidence with the curative instruction to disregard improper argument. These instructions serve very different purposes: while the former admonishes the jury not to give evidentiary weight to counsel’s argument, the latter ad*719monishes the jury that an improper argument must be disregarded altogether. The fact that the evidentiary instruction was given in this case does not support the majority’s conclusion that the trial judge and the parties had determined that an instruction to disregard the improper argument would not effectively cure the error.