Court Opinion

ID: 9482362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:47:47.337226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:56.132863
License: Public Domain

LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent. There is nothing in this record to justify giving the state an opportunity to attempt, at this late date, to establish manifest necessity for the trial judge’s mistrial order. The record reflects no reason for that order other than the trial judge’s frustration over the way in which the attorneys, particularly defense counsel, were conducting the trial. One thing is clear — the defendant had been put in jeopardy. As the majority concedes, the questioning by the defense attorney that apparently triggered the mistrial order was perfectly legitimate cross-examination. Yet, for totally unexplained reasons, the trial court aborted the trial without, so far as the record shows, even considering less drastic alternatives.
One reading the majority opinion easily might assume that the final word would be AFFIRMED rather than REMAND. The majority finds that on the record the writ should be granted. The majority finds that the petitioner did not consent — in fact had no opportunity to consent — to the mistrial. The majority specifically concludes that there was neither manifest necessity for a mistrial nor the exercise of sound discretion by the trial court. The majority further finds that the record does not support the Ohio Supreme Court's hypothesis that the trial court acted out of extreme solicitude for the petitioner rather than to protect the witness. The majority also holds that the Ohio Supreme Court erroneously placed the burden on the petitioner to establish that manifest necessity did not exist. Yet, despite all these deficiencies, the majority concludes that the state is entitled to another bite at the apple.
Any effort to reconstruct, at this late date, the off-the-record conferences conducted by the trial court will produce nothing but an unsupported swearing contest. The respondent failed to demonstrate either in its brief or at oral argument any likelihood that further evidentiary proceedings will produce any new information about the reason for the trial court’s decision to order a mistrial. Before this court vacates a district court judgment in order to permit one party to supplement a record as bare as this one, the court should require the party seeking a remand to identify some available source of the information being sought. This the respondent was unable to do.
The petitioner was charged with a very serious offense and should not be required to run the gauntlet of further court proceedings because the trial judge acted in total disregard of well-established principles that control the granting of mistrials in criminal prosecutions. Justice Story wrote in Perez that the power to abort a criminal proceeding after jeopardy has attached “ought to be used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes.” 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 580 (emphasis added).
The trial court in this case did not declare a mistrial for “very plain and obvious causes.” Two Ohio appellate courts disagreed as to the cause, and the majority finds that the record does not support either hypothesis. Further speculation is not justified, and I believe the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits what will in effect be a nunc pro tunc reconstruction of a totally deficient record in order to find causes that clearly are not “very plain and obvious.”
' I would affirm the district court order granting the writ of habeas corpus.