Court Opinion

ID: 9465714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:53:35.959517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:19.594735
License: Public Domain

*1201WINTER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
There is no dispute between the majority and me that Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345 (1926), does not invalidate the state conviction in the instant case unless Brasfield was decided on constitutional grounds. Although the question is certainly not free from doubt, I, unlike the majority, think that application of the authority which controls our decision leads to the conclusion that the Brasfield rule is a rule of constitutional interpretation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and it is therefore applicable to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. I would therefore invalidate the conviction and direct that the writ issue unless North Carolina concludes to try Ellis anew.
I.
As the majority points out, Brasfield resolved the conflicting decisions which had been generated by the dictum in Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283, 25 S.Ct. 243, 49 L.Ed. 482 (1905), as to whether an inquiry into the numerical division of an undischarged jury constituted reversible error. It held that, in the event of conviction, such an inquiry was reversible error, and it is clear that it held that such an inquiry alone constituted reversible error. In addition to the inquiry made during the jury’s second day of deliberations, the trial court had given a form of Allen charge, see Brasfield v. United States, 8 F.2d 472 (9 Cir. 1925), but this fact was not mentioned by the Supreme Court, although argued to it; see 272 U.S. 448, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345. After deciding that the inquiry required reversal, the Court added “[i]t is unnecessary to consider other assignments of error directed to the instructions given the jury at the time of its recall.” 272 U.S. at 450, 47 S.Ct. at 136.
Admittedly, the Supreme Court did not specify whether its decision was based upon its view of the requirements of the Fifth Amendment or was merely an exercise of its supervisory power over inferior federal courts. All that it said was:
We deem it essential to the fair and impartial conduct of the trial, that the inquiry itself should be regarded as ground for reversal. Such procedure serves no useful purpose that cannot be attained by questions not requiring the jury to reveal the nature or extent of its division. Its effect upon a divided jury will often depend upon circumstances which cannot properly be known to the trial judge or to the appellate courts and may vary widely in different situations, but in general its tendency is coercive. It can rarely be resorted to without bringing to bear in some degree, serious although not measurable, an improper influence upon the jury, from whose deliberations every consideration other than that of the evidence and the law as expounded in a proper charge, should be excluded. Such a practice, which is never useful and is generally harmful, is not to be sanctioned.
272 U.S. at 450, 47 S.Ct. at 135-136.
Since the Supreme Court did not identify the basis of its decision (constitutional or supervisory), one must look to the language it employed to determine that basis. If the inquiry it condemned “is coercive” and it is “essential to the fair and impartial conduct of the trial” that the inquiry alone be regarded as ground for reversal, I can only conclude that Brasfield rests on constitutional grounds. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), held that the right to a jury trial in a criminal case is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice,” so that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that the right attaches in all criminal cases in state courts where, were the case tried in a federal court, the Sixth Amendment guarantee to a jury trial would apply. In reaching that conclusion, the Court spoke to the instances in which rights guaranteed, inter alia, by the Fifth Amendment are also protected against abridgment by the states. Its language bears repeating:
The test for determining whether a right extended by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments with respect to federal *1202criminal proceedings is also protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment has been phrased in a variety of ways in the opinions of this Court. The question has been asked whether a right is among those “ ‘fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions.’ ” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 67 [53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158] (1932); whether it is “basic in our system of jurisprudence,” In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273 [68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682] (1948); and whether it is “a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 343-344 [83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799] (1963); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 6 [84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653] (1964); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403 [85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923] (1965). The claim before us is that the right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment meets these tests.
. Because we believe that trial by jury in criminal cases is fundamental to the American scheme of justice, we hold that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right of jury trial in all criminal cases which — were they to be tried in a federal court — would come within the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee. [Footnotes eliminated.]
391 U.S. at 148-49, 88 S.Ct. at 1447.
Certainly Duncan holds that the right to trial by jury in criminal cases is a fundamental right.* Thus, I think it follows that a practice condemned because it is “coercive” and destroys the “fair and impartial conduct of the trial” is condemned on constitutional grounds. Preservation of the purity of the jury’s deliberations is furtherance of a constitutional objective, not merely the exercise of supervisory power for a desirable but non-constitutional purpose.

 The majority cites two subsequent cases in which the Supreme Court has permitted states to deviate, within certain limits, from federal practice with regard to the number of jurors and the requirement of unanimous verdicts. Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, 92 S.Ct. 1620, 32 L.Ed.2d 152 (1972). I think these cases inapposite. They were concerned solely with formal aspects of the jury. I do not read them to suggest that a judge may, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, conduct an inquiry of the jury which has a “coercive” effect.