Court Opinion

ID: 9792635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:32:31.836933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:34:14.056400
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the trial court committed error when it refused to hold an evidentiary hearing on the question of whether the alternate juror’s note affected the verdict. I share the court’s concern that the trial court declined to hold a hearing and that the state opposed a hearing. It would have been so simple at that time for the trial judge to have called in the alternate juror and juror Tucker, and examined them. He also could have conducted whatever further inquiry may have been indicated. Trial judges are very used to telling jurors throughout the trial that they must not discuss the case with each other. They are also very used to examining jurors who violate the court’s admonition. Rarely is any harm done.
Thus, we must now do what the trial judge should have done, and I join in the court’s disposition. I write separately because I do not share the court’s intense concern about this particular communication from an alternate juror. Nor do I share the concerns *561expressed that a new trial rather than a remand is indicated.
This is not a case of jury tampering. When a third party or litigant privately communicates with a juror during trial about the case, it is cause for great concern. It is for that reason that it is “deemed presumptively prejudicial,” and requires an evidentiary hearing to get to the bottom of it. Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 451, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954). But this is not such a case. The note here came from an alternate juror, someone who, although excluded from deliberating, was in all other respects a juror. See Rules 18.2 and 18.5(h), Ariz.R.Crim.P. The alternate heard all of the evidence and all the instructions. He was not released from his obligations as a juror until a verdict was reached. See Rule 22.4(a), Ariz.R.Crim.P. If a regular juror had died or become otherwise unavailable, the alternate juror would have replaced that juror and would have had to discuss the case with other jurors. Thus, this alternate made a communication that, depending upon contingent circumstances, could have been an appropriate comment between jurors at some stage of the proceedings.1 I agree, of course, that having been conditionally released from deliberations, the note was improper, but it was not nearly as insidious a communication as one between a juror and a party, a witness, or a court official. This alternate juror’s contact is on the lower end of the spectrum of juror misconduct, and thus I do not share the court’s intense alarm over the prospect that it may have affected the outcome.
This leads me to the second point. The remedy for the trial court’s failure to hold a hearing is to now grant an evidentiary hearing. We cannot speculate about prejudice. My experience suggests that jurors are, for the most part, quite independent and not easily tainted by the views of their colleagues. Absent an evidentiary hearing that would show otherwise, we cannot say that this was not a fair trial. Indeed, as the court itself notes, “the remedy for allegations of juror partiality is a hearing in which the defendant has the opportunity to prove actual bias.” Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 215,102 S.Ct. 940, 945, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982). Even in the case of real jury tampering, as in Remmer, a new trial is not the initial remedy. Instead, the trial court must hold a hearing to decide whether there has been prejudice. Id. at 216, 102 S.Ct. at 945. If a hearing is appropriate for true jury tampering, it is all the more appropriate for a case in which an alternate juror improperly communicates with a regular juror. The potential for harm is much less here.
On remand, the judge and counsel will have an opportunity to interrogate the alternate juror, regular juror Tucker, and any other juror whose testimony may be desirable, just as though Tucker had received the note during trial. See Rule 19.4, Ariz. R.Crim.P. If the judge is satisfied that the communication did not affect the verdict, the trial is saved. If the judge cannot make that finding, the defendant will be entitled to a new trial. I do not share the court’s concern that a juror’s own conclusion that he or she was not influenced should be suspect. I agree with the Supreme Court of the United States that it is wrong to consider such evidence “inherently suspect.” Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. at 217 n. 7, 102 S.Ct. at 946 n. 7.
Due process entitles the defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 681, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1436, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986). On remand, the judge will get to decide whether the alternate juror’s communication made a difference. That is all common sense requires.

. Indeed, judges elsewhere (unconstrained by Rule 19.4, Ariz.R.Crim.P.) now encourage jurors to talk to each other during trial while their memories are still fresh and their concerns immediate. The literature is supportive of such an approach. See B. Michael Dann, "Learning Lessons" and "Speaking Rights”: Creating Educated and Democratic Juries, 68 Ind.L J. 1229, 1262-68 (1993). Under such a regime the alternate’s communication here would have been encouraged, not discouraged. How then does it become jury tampering just because the communication is made while conditionally excused? Is the effect on other jurors really different because the note was given later rather than earlier?