Court Opinion

ID: 9450799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:58:03.576467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:27.540183
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I agree that we should reverse and award a new trial. I think it would have been sufficient for us to say that a jury verdict must depend upon evidence which has been admitted at trial. Prejudicial information simply should not be permitted to reach the jury, whether it be from news accounts, Marshall v. United States, 360 U.S. 310, 79 S.Ct. 1171, 3 L.Ed.2d 1250 (1959), or from audible bench conferences concerning proffered evidence which is subject to exclusion, or from other unauthorized sources. When an issue is raised with respect to such subject matter as had here been questioned, the trial judge may be expected to make a careful examination of the jurors to ascertain to what extent the inadmissible “evidence” may have come to the notice of that jury. Cf. Coppedge v. United States, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 275, 272 F.2d 504 (1959). The judge may thereupon decide whether a mistrial must be granted or whether the jury adequately may be instructed to disregard the information which improperly came to its notice. A wide but wise discretion must be exercised in light of the circumstances.
It is certainly so that a trial judge must employ cautious restraint in interposing himself into the conduct of the trial. Hardy v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 253, 335 F.2d 288 (1964). In *797short, while a judge is more than a mere moderator, care must be taken that a jury not derive some unintended meaning from the attitude and comments of the trial judge. Billeci v. United States, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 283, 184 F.2d 394, 403 (1950). We have made this point previously in various and not totally dissimilar situations. See e. g., Cunningham v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. -, 340 F.2d 787 (1964), and our orders in cases such as Mihalopoulos v. United States, No. 18675, judgment entered February 5, 1965.
Without going into further detail, it seems clear on this record that the interests of public justice require that a new trial be granted.