Court Opinion

ID: 9522153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:18:39.885201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:20.799505
License: Public Domain

Reiber, C J.,
¶ 25. dissenting. I recognize that what the trial judge did here was unorthodox, and I agree with the majority that it may have raised the appearance of a lack of impartiality. At the very least, the judge’s actions — holding ex parte communications with two officers and a pharmacy manager during the middle of a trial — raise questions regarding compliance with *515Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 26(a), which, like its counterpart in Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 43(a), generally requires that “the testimony of witnesses shall be taken orally in open court.” Nevertheless, defendant cannot prevail under this rule because defense counsel never made this argument before the trial court, and the “failure to promptly raise the issue before the trial court results in a waiver.” State v. Hinchliffe, 2009 VT 111, ¶ 31, 186 Vt. 487, 987 A.2d 988 (quotations omitted); accord, e.g., State v. Ben-Mont Corp., 163 Vt. 53, 61, 652 A.2d 1004, 1009 (1994) (“To properly preserve an issue for appeal a party must present the issue with specificity and clarity in a manner which gives the trial court a fair opportunity to rule on it”). Indeed, at trial, defendant failed to present any specific arguments or objections to the court’s process in deciding the question of defendant’s competency — a process that was fully disclosed to counsel and to which no objection was raised. As a result, defendant failed to preserve any arguments for appeal under Rule 26(a). Thus defendant’s appeal now relies primarily on Vermont Rule of Evidence 605. Unlike V.R.Cr.P. 26(a), which is subject to waiver and was in fact waived here, V.R.E. 605 explicitly states that no objection is needed to preserve an alleged violation. The problem for defendant is that, whatever missteps the trial judge may have made, the ex parte communications that occurred here were not a violation of Rule 605. Further, if any error occurred, it was harmless. I would affirm both the conviction and the sentence. I therefore dissent.
¶ 26. The majority’s decision today represents the first time that this Court has ever found a violation of Vermont Rule of Evidence 605. The majority notes that it is “hearten[ed]” by the conspicuous “absence of instances in which members of the trial bench have violated Rule 605.” Ante, ¶ 21 n.4. The absence of such violations is no coincidence; it is the result of the fact that it takes a truly radical act far beyond what occurred here to violate this rule. Rule 605 bans something very specific: a “judge sitting at the trial may not testify in that trial as a witness'’ V.R.E. 605 (emphases added). This is a bright-line rule that prohibits presiding judges from literally stepping away from the bench, sitting in the witness stand, taking an oath, and giving actual “testimony ... as a witness.” Id. Such a scenario is so obviously imprudent that it is no wonder that we have never before found a judge in violation of Rule 605.
*516¶ 27. This bright-line rule says nothing about what a judge may or may not do in chambers, nor does the rule address ex parte communications or say anything about what sources a judge may or may not use in making a decision.5 All that matters for purposes of Rule 605 is whether the trial judge gave testimony as a witness. The majority errs in characterizing the trial judge’s statements below as testimony. Although the two transporting officers and the pharmacy manager may have provided information during their ex parte communications with the trial judge, the judge was not testifying when she recited that information by properly reporting it to counsel. Thus, because the trial judge did not testify, there was no violation of Rule 605. See State v. Bissell, 106 Vt. 80, 95, 170 A. 102, 109 (1934) (applying common-law predecessor to Rule 605 and concluding that “the judge did not testify, so the rule does not apply”).
¶ 28. Rule 605 aims only to prevent judges from being both a judge and a witness in the same case. As the Reporter’s Notes state, Rule 605 serves to remind judges that they should “disqualiffy]” themselves in certain situations “either because of the nature of [the judge’s] interest in the case or because his [or her] testimony was essential to one of the parties.” Here, the trial judge did not have any special interest in the case (as evidenced by the fact that no motion for recusal was filed during trial), and the judge never provided testimony. There was therefore no violation of Rule 605. See Reporter’s Notes, Rule 605. In re T.T., 39 S.W.3d 355 (Tex. App. 2001), cited-by the majority, provides little guidance. In that case, a judge presiding at a jury trial to terminate parental rights admitted his own findings of fact from a preliminary hearing that declared the couple’s child in need of state supervision. The jury then returned a decision to terminate the parents’ rights. On appeal, the Texas intermediate appellate court noted that the judge’s findings that the parents posed a danger to the health or safety of the children was precisely the finding which the jury was meant to decide. Id. at 358. Unlike the case in In re T.T., the issue about which our trial judge spoke was not the ultimate issue of fact for the jury; in fact it was irrelevant *517to a resolution of the case on the merits. This was not a situation in which the judge was replacing the jury’s judgment with her own.
¶ 29. The majority goes too far when it concludes “that the testimony Rule 605 seeks to prohibit is not limited to statements formally given from the witness stand . . . but can be brought into the proceedings through other means.” Ante, ¶ 15. The majority cites nothing from Rule 605 or the Reporter’s Notes that supports this conclusion. Nor does the majority cite a single case from this Court that has ever adopted such an expansive view of Rule 605. To the contrary, in the rare situations where we have addressed this rule or its common-law predecessor, we have interpreted it literally and narrowly. See In re Odessa Corp., 2006 VT 35, ¶ 11, 179 Vt. 640, 898 A.2d 1256 (mem.) (citing Rule 605 as support for holding that Liquor Control Board members “did not err in refusing to testify” to ex parte communications related to a proceeding that it was conducting); Bissell, 106 Vt. at 95, 170 A. at 109 (“[T]he judge did not testify, so the rule does not apply.”).
¶ 30. All of the cases that the majority cites for its overly broad view of Rule 605 involve exceptionally blatant violations of rules that, like Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 26(a) and Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 43(a), require that “the testimony of witnesses shall be taken orally in open court.” See Lillie v. United States, 953 F.2d 1188, 1191 (10th Cir. 1992) (citing Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 43(a) as an alternative ground for reversing trial court’s actions when judge visited scene of accident and might have used knowledge gained from that visit as a basis for factual findings); State v. Barker, 420 N.W.2d 695, 699 (Neb. 1988) (granting a motion to recuse trial judge where judge met with victim’s family ex parte and off-the-record). Here, no motion to recuse was filed. At best, defendant might have argued that Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 26(a) formed a basis for challenging these actions, but, as mentioned earlier, defendant failed to preserve this argument at the trial level and therefore cannot present it on appeal. Rule 605 is not the proper vehicle for challenging whether evidence was taken ex parte.
¶ 31. The trial judge’s decision here regarding defendant’s competency was a decision to be made by only the judge, within her discretion, and not by the jury. The judge’s statements were made only to counsel, not to the jury, and do not raise the more problematic situation of a judge giving the jury information that *518was not otherwise presented in court. Cf., e.g., United States v. Nickl, 427 F.3d 1286, 1294 (10th Cir. 2005) (holding that Rule 605 was violated when trial judge made statements to jury that “added new evidence” regarding “an ultimate factual issue to be decided by the jury”). In essence, the majority’s decision today goes beyond what other courts have previously done and shoehorns the trial judge’s actions on these narrow facts into a violation of Rule 605 — a rule that serves a different purpose.
¶ 32. The majority’s expanded view of Rule 605 is also worrisome because it adopts a per se rule of prejudice for violations of this rule. See ante, ¶ 20 (“[GJuided by the fundamental principle of equality before the law, . . . when a judge acts in violation of V.R.E. 605, we require no further showing of prejudice toward the injured party and will reverse the court’s tainted ruling.”). The majority cites two cases from other jurisdictions to support this rule of per se prejudice. See Barker, 420 N.W.2d at 699; State v. McCrary, 2004 SD 18, ¶ 32, 676 N.W.2d 116. But other courts have reached the opposite conclusion and chosen to apply a harmless-error analysis that requires prejudice before a reversal will be granted. See, e.g., Nickl, 427 F.3d at 1293 (“If a violation of Rule 605 has occurred, it is then necessary to consider whether the violation was prejudicial or harmless.”); Elmore v. State, 682 S.W.2d 758, 762 (Ark. Ct. App. 1985) (holding it “was clearly error” where trial judge failed to recuse himself when it became clear he would be a witness in the case, and “emphasizing] the need for trial judges to diligently avoid all appearances of impropriety,” but concluding that error was not prejudicial and therefore denying new trial). The approach of these courts is consistent with our general rule that we may uphold a criminal conviction if we find that any errors that occurred were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Lipka, 174 Vt. 377, 384, 817 A.2d 27, 33 (2002).
¶ 33. In my view, any errors that occurred here were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial judge explicitly reported on her conversations and stated that her conversations in chambers were “clearly not evidence,” but were “just for some information.” The information that was received disclosed no prejudgment by the judge based on her conversations in chambers. Rather, as the majority recognizes, the information “was of an equivocal nature.” Ante, ¶ 19. Indeed, the judge noted that the pharmacy manager told her that “drowsiness is a side effect of the medication, *519Meclizine,” that “people react to [medication] in different ways,” and that the type of reaction someone will have “depends on what other types of medication [the person] was taking” — facts that supported defendant’s claim of incompetency. The pharmacy manager was not thereafter subpoenaed by either attorney, and, although defense counsel stated that it was “an issue” that the pharmacy manager was not there, no request was made by either attorney for time to subpoena him. Later, when the trial judge was making her ruling on competency, she noted that what she relied on in making her ultimate determination was “the sworn testimony of the transport officers” — testimony that was taken in open court on direct examination by the State with full opportunity for cross-examination by defense counsel.
¶ 34. In evaluating the trial court’s ex parte communications and her reports to counsel on the substance of those discussions, we “presume the integrity and honesty of judges.” State v. Davis, 165 Vt. 240, 249, 683 A.2d 1, 6 (1996); accord, e.g., Luce v. Cushing, 2004 VT 117, ¶ 18, 177 Vt. 600, 868 A.2d 672 (mem.) (recognizing that judges are “accorded a presumption of honesty and integrity” (quotation omitted)). Further, we grant trial judges enormous deference in making decisions regarding competency, and we uphold those decisions so long as they are “supported by credible evidence and not clearly erroneous.” State v. Bean, 171 Vt. 290, 295, 762 A.2d 1259, 1262 (2000). Here, despite the majority’s conclusions to the contrary, the testimony provided on the record by the two transport officers was credible and, based on this evidence, it was within the trial court’s discretion to rule that defendant was competent to stand trial. Defendant has therefore failed to show prejudice.
¶ 35. Because defendant has not shown that any prejudice occurred from whatever errors the trial court may have made, any alleged violations of defendant’s due process rights are also harmless. See, e.g., State v. Hunt, 150 Vt. 483, 489-90, 555 A.2d 369, 373-74 (1988) (holding that “the doctrine of harmless error applies” when a due process violation is alleged and affirming a conviction when defendant “failed to demonstrate prejudice”). For these reasons, I would affirm the jury verdict and the sentence. I therefore respectfully dissent.
¶ 36. I am authorized to state that Justice Burgess joins this dissent.

 The majority correctly recognizes that any alleged violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct are not properly before the Court in this proceeding. Ante, ¶ 18 n.3 (citing In re Hill, 152 Vt. 548, 555, 568 A.2d 361, 365 (1989) (per curiam), for the proposition that it is for the Judicial Conduct Board, not this Court, to address alleged ethical violations “in the first instance”).