Court Opinion

ID: 9730199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:05:05.430012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:04.847411
License: Public Domain

HEFFERNAN, C.J.
(concurring). This case was taken by this court for review for two reasons: (1) To determine whether the language of the court of appeals decision in respect to the effect of this court’s denial of a request for certification was erroneous, and (2) to decide whether, under the facts of this case, one juror could testify in respect to the effect upon her of a remark by another juror referring to the race of the defendant during the course of jury deliberations.
*807In respect to the first issue, it was apparent to this court that the court of appeals was erroneously interpreting the effect of a denial of a requested certification. Thus, this case was taken on review, in part, to set at rest an important question of appellate procedure. No member of this court disagrees with the majority’s position in that respect. A denial of certification in no way delineates or suggests this court’s position on the merits of a case.
In respect to the second issue, I agree with the majority opinion; but I write separately because I believe it appropriate to call attention to the record in this case and also to point out what I believe to be an emphasis by the dissenters upon a problem that, were proper trial techniques employed, need not have existed and could have been substantially avoided by proper voir dire procedures.
Under the state of this record, the trial court should be affirmed, because the testimony of the complaining juror was incompetent and barred by the rules of evidence designed to protect the right of trial by jury.
I would so hold because the alleged statement was not one of fact and, therefore, did not implicate the denial of the confrontational rights of the defendant. It is elementary law that the rule of this court, sec. 906.06(2), Stats., and its federal counterpart establish the general rule that “a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury’s deliberations . . . .” It particularly forbids the probing of any juror’s mental processes. Here, on the face of the affidavit by the complaining juror, the appeal is to the “mental processes” of the jury. While what has been referred to as “logic” by the juror complained of as being prejudiced is clearly non-logic, it is apparent that it concerns a mental process — of a sort.
Yet, it is argued that there is an exception in the law that permits testimony in respect to the mental process of a juror if it involves “extraneous prejudicial informa*808tion” or if it is in respect to “outside influence . . . improperly brought to bear upon any j uror.” I believe that argument to be ill-founded. The two latter exceptions are to the prohibition against a juror testifying at all. They are not exceptions to the post-verdict blanket prohibition of any juror’s testimony in respect to the mental processes of himself or another or the effect of a statement by another juror on the mental processes upon the juror wishing to testify.
One of the dissents purports to rely heavily upon State v. Poh, 116 Wis. 2d 510, 343 N.W.2d 108 (1984). However, Poh is a different case. Poh, authored by Justice Abrahamson, reversed because:
“The jurors were testifying about information some jurors had furnished the others. This information related to specific facts not of record concerning the defendant and the crime charged. The information which the jurors received was not the ‘general knowledge’ or ‘the jury wisdom’ we expect jurors to bring to their task. The jurors were not testifying about their thought processes or deliberations. It is clear that the jurors were testifying about extraneous information within the meaning of sec. 906.06(2).” At 521.
Poh involved truly extraneous material. Poh, because of the statement above, is supportive of the majority position in the present case. It is relevant to this case to the extent it points out a proper field of post-verdict impeachment inquiry — where “facts” are improperly brought to the attention of the jury and the defendant’s constitutional confrontational rights are thereby violated.
In the instant case, no facts were put before the jury. The statement was one of jury “unwisdom,” with which the system is occasionally saddled when lawyers fail to do their job. Poh is a different type of case from the one before us and so is After Hour Welding, Inc. v. Laneil Management Co., 108 Wis. 2d 734, 324 N.W.2d 686 (1982); *809but both demonstrate the injection of facts into jury deliberations — “extraneous information” — within the meaning of sec. 906.06(2), which may be inquired about as exceptions to the general rule forbidding impeachment of a verdict by a juror.
After Hour also implicated the confrontational rights, because specific facts were injected into the jury deliberations that had nothing to do with the mental processes or rationale to be employed by the jury. The statement allegedly made in After Hour was that the officer of the defendant corporations and his son had a part in causing the suicide of a Milwaukee judge and also that the officer’s son defended “the outlaws.” These were factual allegations dehors the record that tended to prove the specific defendants had committed “other crimes.” In both Poh and After Hour the extraneous information concerned the specific conduct on other occasions of the very defendants before the court.
In the instant case, as has been pointed out, the statement was not one of fact. I am also concerned by the trial court’s, the court of appeals’, and this court’s acceptance of the disgruntled juror’s version of what happened, with only the most superficial “ferreting out” of the facts at the trial court level. To accept as competent, and as a verity, the statement of the disgruntled juror, without a more adequate investigation and hearing, leaves a record replete with ambiguity — one that is almost impossible to understand with certainty.
Although the trial judge commenced the postconviction hearing in respect to the attack on the jury verdict, reciting in some detail the requirements for a proper factfind-ing as mandated by After Hour, the hearing itself consisted only of an interrogation of the complaining juror. No other jurors were called. “Evidence” which ought to have been elicited by testimony appears in the record during the course of remarks by the court or by *810counsel. No specific findings of fact were made by the court.
While more than one interpretation, accordingly, can be reached by a perusal of the record, the “facts” used in this concurring opinion are derived from the perusal of the record and are not contradicted therein.
In the present case, the disgruntled juror did not complain, according to the statement of the trial judge at the hearing, until, after the discharge of the jury, she was apparently “threatened” because she had voted to convict the defendant. Her affidavit attempts to exculpate herself from the onus of her own act as a juror, the conviction of the defendant. This is a classical case of a juror impeaching his or her own verdict in order to avoid possible censure for the verdict’s consequences — the very vice that sec. 906.06(2), Stats., is designed to insure against. Moreover, she stated that she had wished to vote not guilty but voted to the-contrary because of “duress.” This, then, is the specific testimony of her mental processes in the jury room by which she arrived at her verdict. It is testimony of the effect of a “statement” or “anything” upon her mind or emotions. This is exactly what is forbidden by the rule of this court — a rule that has universal acceptance — in order to preserve the sanctity of the jury’s deliberations.
Even if we accept the affidavit and the testimony of the juror at the hearing, the suspect information is not of extraneous prejudicial facts of the kind upon which emphasis was placed in Poh. It is a recitation of the statement of another juror and the recounting of the complaining juror’s mental process.
I believe it is incorrect, however, to accept the juror’s version as a verity, because her statement has not been appropriately tested. While this juror’s motives, although self-serving and exculpatory, might have been honorable, any hold-out juror willing to claim that he or *811she was subject to duress would, under the dissenters’ view of this case, be able to secure reversal of a trial result and obtain a new trial for a defendant on the grounds of the juror’s statement of the emotional pressure labelled as “duress.” Whatever the effect of sec. 906.06 (2), Stats., a claim of this kind should not be acted upon unless the facts therein are verified by an accepted factfinding procedure.
Less than two years ago, in After Hour, we stated that a proper evidentiary hearing was the threshold step in allowing a juror to impeach a verdict. In the instant case, the record reveals that no juror other than the complaining one was called. The disgruntled juror, who sought to shed herself of blame for the verdict, was allowed to testify as to what another person on the jury said during the course of the deliberations. She was, however, not even sure of the name of the allegedly offending juror. And that offending juror, who has been named, although speculatively, by counsel in his briefs, was never given an opportunity to state his version or contradiction, if any he had, to the disgruntled juror’s testimony. Only her self-serving testimony stands for the proposition that the statement was ever made. No other jurors were called. Only the complaining juror’s statement tends to show that any other jurors were even within earshot.
I believe that the disgruntled juror’s affidavit, revealing, as it did in my view, that any impeachment would have probed the forbidden area of a juror’s mental processes, should not have triggered any hearing. However, once a hearing was undertaken, it should have been reasonably exhaustive and should have required the presence of other jurors.
The gratuitous remarks, evidentiary in nature, of counsel and of the court, are revealing in respect to what may be the real problem with this trial — an inadequate *812voir dire of the jurors by the defense counsel. Defense counsel at the hearing stated:
“I sat up there during voir dire and I asked the jurors individually. I asked them as a group; ‘Well, now, Mr. Shillcutt is black.’ / didn’t even ask them, if they were 'prejudice [d]. I just stated would you be more likely to give benefit of the doubt to the state?” (Emphasis supplied.)
It would appear that, under these circumstances as described by counsel himself, only a most perfunctory effort was made to secure a fair, impartial jury at the time the jury was selected.
Thus, I am concerned that the dissenters would upset a verdict upon the basis of an inadequate record devoid of any corroboration. I am also concerned that the record reveals that defense counsel did not use the tools available to any lawyer to secure an impartial jury.
I believe that grandiloquent prose should be reserved in this case for the emphasizing of the necessity for counsel to utilize adequate voir dire procedures, rather than to inveigh against prejudice which need not have occurred had there been appropriate defense counsel vigilance. Emphasis should be upon techniques necessary to make the jury system — the great bastion of our liberties since the day of the Magna Carta — work, rather than to make new and unwarranted incursions into jury privacy.
. Had counsel demonstrated greater care at the voir dire stage, this case could be in a far different posture, for it might well have been shown that a juror, under oath, had perjured himself. The voir dire, with its peremptory strikes and strikes for cause, is the prime instrument of the common law designed to assure an impartial jury and a fair trial.
Both After Hour, at 737, and Poh, at 515, stress the importance of the voir dire in securing an impartial jury. *813It appears, however, that we are continuing to condone inadequate voir dire proceedings by nevertheless reviewing issues that could have been avoided by more searching jury selection procedures. In light of the statements of defense counsel at the post-conviction hearing, I would conclude that the error by which, arguably, a less than optimum jury was selected might have been that of counsel. If this verdict were to be vacated, I suggest that it be done only after an examination of the procedures used in securing a jury.
The impact of this case, at least as viewed from the perspective of the dissenters, is that the voir dire is a .superfluous device — or it can become so — and even though counsel stumbles, he may have a second kick at the cat if the upshot is an arguably prejudiced jury. The result of counsel error might well be a reversal of a verdict, but it should not be on the basis of jury verdict impeachment asserted by the dissenters here.
The reasons for protecting jury deliberations from scrutiny have oft been repeated. It is well stated in the majority opinion. Supra, at 802-03. I believe that rights of minorities are best preserved by guarding the sanctity of jury deliberations and insuring that juries, as a part of our jurisprudential institution, will be as prejudice-free as possible. This can best be accomplished by utilizing the voir dire as it is intended to be used and by the proper superintendence of the proceedings by a vigilant trial judge. Those instances where the jury’s deliberations have been compromised by “extraneous prejudicial information” — facts, as Pola makes clear— or where “outside influence” is improperly brought to bear are specifically made exceptions to the rule of nondisclosure, and in those circumstances a verdict may be impeached. There is no need to probe the mental processes of the jurors, as was attempted in the inquiry here. In any event, where a trial judge concludes that there is *814an allegation of impropriety that would come within the exception to the rule, there must be a meaningful hearing — not, as in this case, only an inquisition of the complaining juror. A reversal could not, under the methodology of After Hour, be predicated on this record. If we are to be true to our judicial oaths, it is our duty to hold counsel’s “feet to the fire” to make sure that the proper techniques provided by law are employed to assure equal justice under law and to avoid the likelihood that trial results will be skewed by prejudice. We ought not ignore our own rules and tested criminal trial procedures that are designed to protect the right to a fair trial by jury. We should not subvert our jury system and open up verdicts after the fact.
One dissenter has referred to this case as an “easy one.” If so, it is strange that the trial court, the court of appeals, and this court disagree with the result urged in that dissent. The easy part of the case is the statement in the dissent with which no person attuned to Anglo-American values of justice could disagree, “Racial stereotypes have no place in judicial proceedings.” (Abraham-son, J., dissenting opinion, at 829) I think that that dissenter would not argue, or even venture to assert, that the trial judge, the court of appeals, or the majority of this court believe to the contrary. What is easy is to stereotype this case as only presenting a problem of racial prejudice. To do so is to overlook the sanctity of the jury deliberations and the time-tested method of trying to assure prejudice-free verdicts. The case is an easy one, at least to label, if the problem of jury confidentiality is not addressed in the framework of Rule 906.06 (2).
I find it a difficult case because every instinct of a judge committed to the constitution is to lash out at any manifestation of prejudice and evil; but, in this case, to do that without giving heed to all the values involved is to cripple the jury system without going to the source *815of the problem in the present case. The reasons for not allowing a juror to impeach his or her verdict have been repeated in numerous publications ad nauseum. I will not repeat them here. The majority opinion, the dissents, After Hour, and Poh are replete with supporting citations. I think it appropriate, however, to quote the words of Chief Justice Wollman of the South Dakota Supreme Court (concurring specially) when that court considered a somewhat similar problem. Referring to the difficulty of the question, he said:
“I say difficult, because . . . prejudice is so abhorrent to the judicial process there is a temptation to speak in magniloquent terms in expressing our condemnation of it and in fashioning remedies to counteract it.” State v. Finney, 337 N.W.2d 167, 170 (S.D. 1983).
Although I believe a more adequate hearing should have been held as a predicate to any court’s review of the question here presented, I conclude that the majority, instead of fulminating about the general problem of prejudice, properly points out that the jury system, correctly used, is our best assurance of the preservation of civil liberties and for the rendering of prejudice-free verdicts. I conclude that we should not expand the exceptions to the rule that would intrude into jury deliberations and in the end subvert, though unintentionally, the cause of justice.
I join in the majority opinion and concur for the reasons stated herein.
I am authorized to state that Justice Callow joins in this concurrence.