Court Opinion

ID: 9448875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:47:35.179879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:35.329951
License: Public Domain

WISDOM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The Allen charge causes more trouble in the administration of justice than it is worth. Its time-saving merits in the district court are more than nullified by the complications it causes on appeal when the reviewing court must determine whether in the circumstances of a particular case the trial judge applied the charge properly- — in substance and in timing. “Like Banquo’s ghost it will not remain at rest.” Justice Udall, dissenting in State v. Voeckell, 69 Ariz. 145, 210 P.2d 972 (1949). And in this Circuit the ghost seems especially restless. See Powell v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 297 F.2d 318; Huffman v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 297 F.2d 754; Green v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 309 F.2d 852.
In Powell v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 297 F.2d 318 this Court ruled out misuse of the charge; “the correctness of the [Allen] charge must be determined by the consideration of the facts of each case and the exact words used by the trial judge.” The record here does not show whether the jury returned upon its own motion or upon the call of the court. In *130fact, the record does not show why the jury returned at all. But this much is clear: the jury returned to the courtroom only one hour and five minutes after having retired to deliberate. After ascertaining that the jury could not agree, the trial judge immediately gave the dynamite charge. I have not found any other case involving a deadlocked jury when the Allen charge was given so precipitately. In the Allen case itself the supplemental instructions were not given until the jury had been out for six and one-half hours. In Powell the charge was not given until five hours after the jury retired. See, for example, United States v. Furlong, 7 Cir., 1952, 194 F.2d 1, cert. den’d 343 U.S. 950, 72 S.Ct. 1042, 96 L.Ed. 1352 (given after three hours’ deliberation); United States v. Samuel Dunkel & Co., 2 Cir., 1949, 173 F.2d 506 (given after 12 hours of deliberation); Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283, 305, 25 S.Ct. 243, 49 L.Ed. 482 (1905) (given after 38 hours of deliberation).
The jury’s hurry to return indicates to me that the jurors did not understand their duty to deliberate patiently and in accordance with their conscientious convictions. This Court has upheld a charge admonishing “each juror of his duty, not to agree to any verdict which did not accord with his conscientious convictions, and was a correct statement of the law”. Shipley v. United States, 5 Cir., 1922, 281 F. 134, 136. That sort of an admonition would have been more appropriate here than the dynamite charge.
The Allen charge must be considered in context. In this case the trial judge put no questions to the jury; the jury put no questions to the judge. It is entirely possible that the jury’s prompt return simply indicated a disagreement arising from their uncertainty as to the law. To protect the accused against such a possibility, it seems to me that the trial judge first should have determined whether the jury was troubled by any question of law. See Hagans v. United States, 5 Cir., 1959, 261 F.2d 924, cert. den’d 359 U.S. 967, 79 S.Ct. 880, 3 L.Ed.2d 835. In addition, it seems to me that the predicate for using the charge is lacking unless the trial judge asks the foreman, as in Powell, “whether he thought it advisable that the jury deliberate any further.”
Only twenty-five minutes after the foreman said that the jury could not agree — the jury came back with a verdict. Thus, not only did the jury not take due time for its deliberations the first time it retired, but under the explosive force of the dynamite blast, the jury did not take due time for its deliberations the second time it retired. There is authority that such speedy agreement raises an inference that the instruction had a coercive effect. Middle State Utilities Co. v. Incorporated Telephone Co., 222 Iowa 1275, 271 N.W. 180, 109 A.L.R. 66.
I would reverse. The trial judge in this case is a fair and able, learned and experienced district judge. But I would hold that the district court prematurely blasted the jury; that the proper predicate was not laid for the Allen admonition.