Court Opinion

ID: 9699891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:54:58.130353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:59.495206
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority says that we do not have a per se rule in Pennsylvania which requires the disqualification of a jury *559anytime there is ex parte contact between that juror and a witness. (Majority Opinion, at p. 555). Having read the majority opinion, that proposition is of questionable viability. The majority also says that under our law there must be a showing that the contact between a member of the jury and an officer of the court , resulted in “a reasonable likelihood of prejudice to the defendant.” (Majority Opinion, at p. 555). But who is required to establish this prejudice?
The majority criticizes the trial judge in this case who, having been asked by the Appellant to dismiss a juror whom he felt was tainted by an improper contact with a witness, held a hearing to allow the Appellant to establish this element of prejudice and, based on the evidence presented by the parties, found as a fact that the complained of contact was, as most, harmless to the defense. The majority then reverses the findings of the trial judge and grants a new trial because of some imagined speculative subconscious influence that might have crept into the juror’s being during the short conversation and because the trial judge did not call on the juror to satisfy himself that no such bias was present.
Whether such an insidious taint was perpetrated on this witness was for Appellant to establish at the hearing on his Motion to Dismiss this particular juror and not a task for the trial judge. The majority excuses defense counsel for his failure to call the juror because it could have put him in the difficult position of deciding whether to avoid questioning the juror or run the risk of antagonizing a juror who might remain to decide his client’s fate. That’s what we call trial strategy and it justifies trial counsel’s decision not to call a particular witness and to live with the consequences of his choice, but I did not know until today that it shifts the burden to the trial court to call the witness and ferret out the information for him.
I believe that trial counsel had every opportunity to establish his claim of prejudice and, based on the record created, the findings are supportable and cannot be reversed. If, however, the majority insists on interjecting this new requirement into these proceedings, then, at the very least, this *560matter should .be remanded so that the trial court can hold a hearing to establish whether the juror was indelibly marked by this sixty second conversation with Sergeant Wilson. I am sure that the passage of two and one half years will not have taken away the memory of that event and its effect on the juror’s psyche. Furthermore, if there is a subconscious taint, I doubt that the witness would be consciously aware of it. I guess a psychiatrist will have to be called in at taxpayer’s expense to delve into the subconscious of the witness. I dissent.