Court Opinion

ID: 9565794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:27:56.188224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:53.436902
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring)—I agree with the majority's holding that the special facts of this case justify holding that the failure to give a unanimity instruction was harmless in this case. I write separately because the majority's reasoning, if read too expansively, might undermine the standard that this court unanimously agreed governs the question of harmless error. See State v. Kitchen, 110 Wn.2d 403, 756 P.2d 105 (1988).
*73In State v. Kitchen, supra, we held that constitutional error was presumed to be prejudicial. This presumption can only be overcome if no rational juror could have a reasonable doubt as to any one of the incidents alleged. Kitchen, at 411.
I agree with the majority that no reasonable juror could have found the defendant innocent. I am concerned, however, about reading the jury's collective mind to reach that result. Kitchen requires a presumption of prejudice whenever jury instructions are erroneous as to unanimity, precisely because the error usually makes it impossible to determine what the jury found factually. Without a unanimity instruction in a multiple acts case, the jury might convict even though it was not unanimous about any particular act having occurred. Kitchen, at 411. For that reason, the majority's citation to State v. Casbeer, 48 Wn. App. 539, 542, 740 P.2d 335, review denied, 109 Wn.2d 1008 (1987) is inappropriate. In Casbeer, the Court of Appeals upheld a finding of nonentrapment in a bench trial because a specific factual finding about the lack of credibility of a witness supported it. If the jury made specific factual findings about the credibility of witnesses, I would readily agree to uphold these findings if supported by substantial evidence. Because the jury reaches its verdict without entering specific findings of fact, however, assumptions about what the jurors must have thought are usually grossly unfair to defendants appealing constitutionally defective jury instructions. An improperly instructed jury may reach a verdict without reaching the factual conclusions which should support a verdict.
This record, however, forces me to agree with the majority that the jury could not have reached the verdict it did without concluding that the victim was telling the truth about all three incidents and that the defendant was lying about all of them. Because nothing in the record suggests that the credibility of the two principals varied as to any of the incidents and no other direct evidence of the acts was introduced, I agree that given the credibility judgment the *74jury must have made, no reasonable juror could have concluded that the defendant was innocent of any of the acts alleged. Such a conclusion will never be appropriate if the record reveals any evidence which could justify a reasonable doubt in any juror's mind about any given incident, even if the jury obviously believed the victim and not the defendant.
I wish to emphasize that most records do not permit such confident inferences about what the jurors must have concluded. Such inferences will be inappropriate in almost any other case. We must always ask ourselves not just what we would have concluded were we the juror. We must decide whether any rational juror could have a reasonable doubt as to any of the acts alleged in deciding a harmless error question. Kitchen, at 411. Because no reasonable juror could have a reasonable doubt about any of the acts alleged in this case, I concur in the majority opinion.
Brachtenbach, J., concurs with Utter, J.