Court Opinion

ID: 9730201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:05:05.442968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:04.854863
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The jury in this case had been deliberating for nearly six *820hours. The defendant was a black male charged with soliciting prostitutes and keeping a place of prostitution. The state’s chief witness was a young white woman who testified that she gave the defendant her earnings from prostitution.
Finally one juror said to the others, “Let’s be logical, he’s a black, and he sees a seventeen year old white girl —I know the type.” Another member of the jury expressed agreement with this statement. Twenty minutes later the jury reached a verdict of guilty.
This version of the incidents during the jury deliberations is taken from the sworn testimony of one of the jurors, the only witness at the hearing. After this juror testified, the circuit court stated that “the court would find — would believe [the juror] to be a credible witness, that the statement in fact did take place and she also indicates to the court that one of the female members of the jury did agree with that statement.” Transcript of the Dec. 16, 1982 Hearing, pp. 15-16.1
*821The record does not show whether any blacks were on the jury, but in all probability this was an all-white jury. It is unlikely, although not unheard of, that a racially referenced remark would have been made in the presence of a black person. Furthermore, this case was tried in Winnebago county where only one third of one percent (approximately 380 out of 132,000) of the population is black. Wisconsin Blue Book 1983-84, p. 759 (1983). Even if one of those few blacks had been among the prospective jurors, the state could easily have stricken her or him from the jury. In Wisconsin there is a presumption that the state’s peremptory challenge of minority persons does not violate a defendant’s rights. See State v. Grady, 93 Wis. 2d 1, 10, 286 N.W.2d 609 (Ct. App. 1979).2
The majority rule announced today by Justices Day and Ceci and joined by Chief Justice Heffernan and Justice Callow, together with the Grady rule, hinders the judiciary’s ability to ensure that racial prejudice does not enter into jury deliberations. I must therefore dissent.
*822Every defendant in this state has a constitutional right to be tried by an impartial jury. Wis. Const, art. I, secs. 5, 7; U.S. Const, amends. VI, XIV. The right to an impartial jury is at the heart of due process.3 Each juror swears to be impartial. Each juror takes an oath to render a verdict “according to the law and the evidence given in court.” Sec. 895.39(1), Stats. 1981-82.
Twelve impartial jurors were to sit in judgment of this defendant. No juror is “permitted to summon that thirteenth juror, prejudice.” United States v. Antonelli Fireworks Co., 155 F.2d 631, 659 (1946) (Frank, J., dissenting) .4
Nevertheless in this case, apparently one juror sought to convince at least two other jurors to vote for conviction by injecting a reference specifically relating the defendant’s race to the facts of the case and the crime charged. Apparently the jurors were asked to assume that black men tend to use young white girls for immoral purposes and to reason from this assumption that if a young white prostitute accuses a black man of being a pimp, he probably is a pimp. Apparently at least one of the other jurors indicated some type of agreement with this stereotype.
*823The gratuitous reference to the race of the defendant and the race of the victim can be taken as a deliberate attempt by a juror to employ racial stereotypes to bolster the state’s case, which depended on the jury believing the state’s witness rather than the defendant’s testimony. The people of the State of Wisconsin do not need their criminal prosecutions bolstered by a jury resorting to racial stereotypes and prejudice. This court should not permit the State of Wisconsin to obtain convictions with this kind of “assistance.”
Race discrimination is always odious. It is especially odious in the administration of justice. Race discrimination violates our federal and state constitutions, our statutes, and the fundamental ideals of our democratic society. When race discrimination occurs in a jury room, the harm is not only to the defendant but to the people of the state. Race discrimination in a jury room destroys the integrity of our judicial system. As Chief Justice Burger recently wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in a child custody case, “The Constitution cannot control such [race] prejudices but neither can it tolerate them. Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.” Palmore v. Sidoti, - U.S. -, -, 52 L.W. 4497, 4498 (1984).
Techniques such as voir dire5 and instructions from the trial judge6 help safeguard the impartiality of a jury *824and ensure that persons who have racial biases that will interfere with their decision making do not sit on the *825jury. But these techniques are not infallible. And whether or not they are used, when a claim is made after the verdict that a juror was racially biased and attempted to sway the jury using racial stereotypes, the circuit court must still decide whether the claim is valid and thus requires reversal of the verdict.
A “back-up” safeguard of fair trial — a “back-up” which should be used sparingly and with great caution — is post-verdict inquiry as to jury misconduct. Sec. 906.06(2) sets forth the ground rules under which a juror may testify in such an inquiry.
The issue in this case is whether the circuit court can consider the testimony of the juror who testified that racial bias entered the jury room. Invoking sec. 906.06 (2), Chief Justice Heffernan and Justices Day, Callow, and Ceci say that the juror’s testimony cannot be considered because the juror was not competent to testify. Thus although a defendant in a criminal case has a constitutional right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, today’s decision will hinder the defendant who tries to show in a post-verdict inquiry that racial bias entered into the proceedings.
Limitations on post-verdict inquiry into jury deliberations are necessary. Secrecy of jury deliberations protects the jurors’ freedom to engage in frank and open discussions. Moreover there is a need for finality of verdicts lest judges “become Penelopes, forever engaged in unravelling the webs they wove.” Jorgensen v. York Ice Machinery Cory., 160 F.2d 432, 435 (2d Cir. 1947), cert. den. 332 U.S. 764 (1947).
Nevertheless, the defendant’s right to a trial by an impartial jury must be protected. When reasonable grounds exist to indicate that the jury may have been exposed to extraneous or improper influences, “the entire picture should be explored,” Remmer v. United States, 350 U.S. 377, 379 (1956). Frequently the only way to get “the picture” is by questioning jurors, since *826the jurors are usually the only witnesses to the events in question. As Justice Steinmetz wrote for the court, “While the rule against impeachment of a jury verdict is strong and necessary, it is not written in stone nor is it a door incapable of being opened. It competes with the desire and duty of the judicial system to avoid injustice and to redress the grievances of private litigants.” After Hour Welding v. Laneil Management Co., 108 Wis. 2d 734, 737-38, 324 N.W.2d 686 (1982).
Sec. 906.06(2) seeks to reach an accommodation between the two policies — finality and secrecy on the one hand and fair trial on the other. Sec. 906.06(2) reaches this accommodation by allowing a juror to testify as to extraneous prejudicial matters improperly brought to the jury’s attention or any outside influence improperly brought to bear upon any juror, while prohibiting testimony as to matters which inhere in the verdict. The language of sec. 906.06(2) is broad. In State v. Poh, 116 Wis. 2d 510, 518, 343 N.W.2d 108 (1983), this court recognized that it is difficult to distinguish between “inherent” matters and “extraneous” matters.
Four Justices, departing from After Hour and Poh, are persuaded that a juror’s testimony as to racial comments during jury deliberations goes to the “effect” of something upon the minds of the jurors and that the juror is incompetent to testify to impeach the verdict. Justices Steinmetz and Bablitch and I, adhering to After Hour and Poh, are persuaded that consideration by the jury of racial stereotypes amounts to “outside influence” as to which the juror may testify.
Justices’ parsing of the language of 906.06(2) to determine the juror’s competency to testify masks the underlying determinative issue. As Judge Learned Hand warned, “the consecrated rubric” that jurors are incompetent to testify to impeach their verdict “offers an easy *827escape from embarrassing choices.” Jorgensen v. York Ice Co. Machinery Corp., 160 F.2d 432, 435 (2d Cir. 1947), cert. den. 332 U.S. 764 (1947).7 By relying on the rule that the juror cannot testify to impeach the verdict a court can avoid the responsibility of deciding whether in fact the defendant was given a fair and impartial trial. Judge Hand advised courts to avoid the rubric and to look at the facts, asking whether the “facts require the verdict to be set aside, as concededly some facts do.” Jorgensen, supra, 160 F.2d at 435.
Chief Justice Burger, then Judge Burger, adopted Judge Hand’s view, writing:
“The crux of the problem would be more clear if we regard the issue not as the admissibility of the juror’s affidavit but rather its sufficiency for purposes of impeaching the verdict. We should not dispose of this case on the ground of admissibility. Rather we should view it as Judge Hand did and consider what the affidavit says, and assuming its truth for these purposes then decide whether it should lead to reversal.” Kilmes v. United States, 263 F.2d 273, 274 (D.C. Cir. 1959).
After devoting seventeen of nineteen pages to the issue of the juror’s competency to impeach the verdict, the majority opinion, joined by two other justices, ac*828knowledges tha.t the juror’s competency to impeach the verdict is not the determinative issue. They recognize that the finality of the verdict and the secrecy of the jury deliberations must give way to the greater concern that the individual defendant be assured due process, a fair trial. Day, J., pp. 789, 790, 793, 794, 804, 805. I agree with the majority that sec. 906.06(2) must yield to due process requirements.
The majority finally concludes that the defendant was given a fundamentally fair trial and that the record does not “reveal such a magnitude of prejudice” as to require a reversal. Day, J., p. 805. I disagree that the proper test is “such a magnitude of prejudice.” The usual test requires reversal when there is a reasonable possibility that the error complained of — here the injection of a racial stereotype in deliberations — might have contributed to the conviction. State v. Poh, supra. Applying the usual test in this case, I would have to conclude that the conviction must be reversed: there is a reasonable possibility that the injection of the racial stereotype contributed to the conviction and was not harmless error.
The post-verdict hearing in this case consisted of very limited questioning of one juror. This is not the type of “investigation” called for in After Hour to ferret out the truth as to racial prejudice in the jury room. I conclude that, at a minimum, After Hour and Poh require that this case be sent back to the circuit court to conduct a full hearing and take testimony from all the available jurors as to the incidents described by the juror who testified.
This court has eloquently and forcefully promised the citizens of this state that the Wisconsin judiciary would be vigilant in keeping racial, religious, ethnic, and gender stereotypes and prejudices out of the jury room. After Hour involved negative stereotyping on the basis *829of religion; a juror referred to one of the participants in the trial as a “Cheap Jew.” This court wrote:
“Whenever it comes to a trial court’s attention that a jury verdict may have been the result of any form of prejudice based on race, religion, gender or national origin, judges should be especially sensitive to such allegations and conduct an investigation to ‘ferret out the truth.’ . . . For even if only one member of a jury harbors a material prejudice, the right to a trial by an impartial jury is impaired. . . . Trial courts should do all within their means to ensure that verdicts have not been compromised by jurors who harbor prejudice towards any minority.
“. . . Our system of justice seeks the truth, whatever the jury finds the truth to be, but that truth cannot be determined when the jury is exposed to extraneous prejudices or information that the judge finds clearly and convincingly might have affected a hypothetical average jury. The voir dire is designed to eliminate prospective jurors who hold prejudices by striking such jurors from the panel. Having done that, prejudices should not be allowed to creep into the jury room by extraneous information that the jury determines would have affected an average hypothetical jury.” 108 Wis. 2d at 739, 740, 744.
I am not willing to join the majority in relaxing our vigilance.
For me this case is not a hard case, it is an easy one. At a minimum, we ought to remand and insist that the trial court give this juror’s assertion that a jury verdict may have been the result of racial prejudice a hard look. Racial stereotypes have no place in judicial proceedings. When the court lowers the guard to permit racial stereotypes to be “evidence” for the jury to consider during jury deliberations, it harms not only the individual defendant but the administration of justice.
On the basis of this record without further testimony there appears to be a substantial likelihood that the in*830troduction of the racial stereotype during the jury deliberations prevented the jury from deciding the case solely on the evidence presented and deprived the defendant of rights guaranteed by the state constitution: due process, equal protection of the law, and an impartial jury. Those rights are fundamental values in our judicial system. Impairment of those rights endangers the basic integrity and foundation of the judicial system.
“Equal justice under law” is not just a catchy phrase carved in stone on court buildings or recited on appropriate ceremonial or patriotic occasions. To “administer justice without respect to persons” is a promise the judges of this state have sworn to keep. See judge’s oath of office, sec. 757.02(1), Stats. 1981-82. This case, like After Hour, presents an opportunity to keep that promise.
I cannot affirm the conviction on this record. I dissent.

 The only issue presented on this review as to the juror’s post verdict testimony by either the state or defense or the court of appeals opinion relates to the racial statement. Two issues were presented at the circuit court — racial bias and coercion. After the juror testified at the post-verdict hearing, each issue was treated separately and distinctly by counsel and the circuit court.
After the circuit court ruled that the racial statement was not sufficient grounds to overturn the verdict, the circuit court asked counsel to discuss the second issue — coercion and duress. The juror had testified that she had voted for conviction because of duress and coercion by the other jurors. No argument was made before the court of appeals or this court by either the state or defense counsel that the conviction should be overturned on the ground of coercion or that the juror could testify as to this type of coercion.
In the judge’s and prosecutor’s discussion of the coercion issue, there is mention of an alleged threat made on the juror. Aside from the mention of a threat, this record reveals nothing about a threat. There is nothing in the juror’s affidavit, or in her testimony in this case or in her testimony in the preliminary *821examination in another case (part of which is in this record) about any threat.
There is no information anywhere in the record, the briefs, or oral argument to suggest that a threat or coercion was related in any manner to the juror’s testimony as to the racial statement. To all appearances, nothing other than conscientiousness as a juror motivated her to come forward.

 State v. Grady, 93 Wis. 2d 1, 10, 286 N.W.2d 609 (Ct. App. 1979), was a Milwaukee county case in which the defendant was black and the state struck all three prospective black jurors. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction concluding:
“[There is a] presumption that the prosecutor was using his peremptory challenges to obtain a fair and impartial jury. . . . We do not find error merely because the prosecution struck all three blacks on the jury in this case. . . . Nor do we find error because the state’s action resulted in defendant being tried by a jury which did not contain any members of his own race.” State v. Grady, 93 Wis. 2d 1, 11, 286 N.W.2d 609 (Ct. App. 1979).

 Wis. Const, art. I, sec. 8; U.S. Const, amend. XIV; Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217 (1982); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 721-722 (1961); Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462 (1907); State v. Poh, 116 Wis. 2d 510, 519, 343 N.W.2d 108 (1983).
Where a juror’s incapacity or unwillingness to decide a case solely on the basis of the evidence arises in connection with the defendant’s race, religion, ethnic origin, or gender, the defendant’s right to equal protection under the law may be implicated, as well as the right to an impartial jury and due process. Wis. Const, art. I, sec. 1; U.S. Const, amend. XIV.

 The jurors are free to leaven their deliberations with commonsense wisdom and experience and to deliberate fully and freely in secret, behind closed doors. But the jurors cannot bring racial stereotypes or racial prejudice to their deliberations or decision.

 In this case, as in After Hov/r, the voir dire was not reported. In argument to the circuit court at the post verdict hearing, defense counsel in this case briefly referred to his questioning of the jurors as to racial bias. But this reference does not tell us very much about the voir dire.
Defense counsel’s only reference to the voir dire is as follows:
“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.’ I didn’t even ask them if they were prejudice. I just *824stated would you be more likely to give benefit of the doubt to the state? ‘No, we wouldn’t do that?’ Would you be more likely to require Mr. Shillcutt to prove his innocence rather than the state prove its case? ‘No, we wouldn’t do that?’ But, yet, despite those promises, despite the internal restraints we all have, a scene of racial prejudice reeked its ugly head and did so during jury deliberations.”
As I read the record, defense counsel was trying to remind the circuit court that he did not merely ask the jurors whether they harbored racial prejudice. Defense counsel was not going to rely on a juror’s subjective determination of prejudice. Defense counsel’s questions as to racial prejudice were apparently designed to elicit answers which might provide an objective basis for counsel to evaluate a juror’s impartiality. Defense counsel’s questions were also designed to show the jurors ways in which they might unconsciously and improperly impose burdens on a black defendant.
While defense counsel has an obligation at voir dire to question the jurors as to racial bias to ensure an impartial jury and a fair trial, the prosecuting attorney has a similar duty. The prosecuting attorney “is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice be done.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935).
For a discussion of the difficulty of framing questions for voir dire to weed out potentially prejudiced jurors, see Van Dyke, Voir Dire: How Should It Be Conducted to Ensure that our Juries Are Representative and Impartial, 3 Hastings Const. L.Q. 65, 92 (1976); Levit, Nelson, Ball and Chernick, Expediting Voir Dire: An Empirical Study, 44 S. Cal. L. Rev. 916 (1971); Ginger, Jury Selection in Civil and Criminal Trials 535-41 (2d ed. 1984).

 The circuit court instructed the jury as follows: “The court has instructed you regarding the rules of law which should govern you in your deliberations. The time has now come when the great burden of reaching a just, fair and conscientious decision of this case is to be thrown wholly upon you, the jurors selected for this important duty. You will not be swayed by sympathy, prejudice, or passion. You will be very careful and deliberate in weighing the evidence. I charge you to keep your duty steadfastly in mind, and as upright citizens, to render a just and true verdict.”

 “The familiar rubric that a juror may not impeach his own verdict, dating from Lord Mansfield’s time is a gross oversimplification.” Federal Advisory Committee’s Note to 906.06, 69 Wis. 2d R167. See also 8 Wigmore, Evidence! sec. 2352, at p. 696 (McNaughton rev. ed. 1961). Commentators have noted that the rule that a juror cannot impeach the verdict is a rule of administrative convenience, difficult to justify on theoretical or conceptual grounds, and that there is a discernible trend towards broadening the exceptions to the rule that a juror cannot testify. See 8A Moore’s Federal Practice, par. 31.08[l][a], p. 31-68 (9/78); III ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Trial by Jury, sec. 15-4.7, Commentary, p. 15-152 (2d ed. 1980); ALI, Model Code of Evidence, Rule 301; Comment, Impeachment of Jury Verdicts, 25 U. Chi. L. Rev. 360 (1958).