Court Opinion

ID: 9480867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:01:13.819551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:57.162713
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Here the question was not the final one of whether the jury was prejudiced. The question was the preliminary, albeit vitally important, one: Whether there were sufficient indications, revealed by juror Ball’s contact with Judge Levin, necessitating further inquiry at the time of trial as to whether the jury might be racially prejudiced. To me, sufficient alarms of distinct possible prejudice had been sounded. Juror Ball expressed to Judge Levin her opinion that the foreperson on the jury was racially biased based on the foreperson’s statement that “the blacks were sticking together.” Though not conclusive, the most probable inference to be drawn, given that the remark was made by the fore*898person to other jurors in the course of the trial, was one of ascription of motive or intent by reason of race. The young black defendant had shot two white policemen to death. The procedure of the case to trial involved an intense publicity, newspaper and other, centering on the racial character of the black defendant as contrasted with that of the white policemen. As a life-long resident of Maryland, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that race has permeated the atmosphere in Maryland’s southern counties and that decisions sometimes have depended less on what one did than on the race to which one belongs.
In short, alerting counsel for the defendant and the defendant himself was, at a most critical phase, necessary if there was to be a fair trial. Insuring a fair trial, to the greatest possible extent, is the reason, above all others, for our existence. An adequate inquiry, with participation by someone with the defendant’s interest at heart and actuated by the motive to ascertain whether there was prejudice in the jury, was essential. Perhaps there was jury prejudice, perhaps not, but the situation had developed to the point where an adequate answer should have been sought. Perhaps, in the end, it might not have helped the defendant. Perhaps, however, it might have done so. In any event, a fairer trial would have been the result if the inquiry had been permitted to take place.
The panel majority dismisses the error as “harmless” in light of, and in deference to, the state courts’ findings of harmlessness. The panel, following Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 104 S.Ct. 453, 78 L.Ed.2d 267 (1983), concludes that the record does not contain “convincing evidence” to disturb the state courts’ findings. But the record lacks “convincing evidence” contrary to the state courts’ conclusions for the simple reason that the record is nearly devoid of any probative information about juror Ball’s ex parte contact with Judge Levin and her expressed position that the jury’s foreperson was racially biased. That absence of information is not surprising given that the post-trial hearing, precipitated by counsel’s delayed discovery of the judge’s neglect, occurred more than one year after the trial had ended.
It seems to me that Rushen v. Spain —holding that a post-trial hearing is an adequate initial remedy for a judge’s concealment of potential juror bias — requires a “meaningful” post-trial hearing. A meaningful opportunity to inquire into whether the judge’s error affected the fairness of Johnson’s trial also seems mandated by Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), in which the Supreme Court proclaimed that “before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." 386 U.S. at 24, 87 S.Ct. at 828 (emphasis added).
Given the length of time between the conclusion of Johnson’s trial and the post-trial hearing, i.e., more than one year — in contrast to the hearing in Rushen v. Spain that occurred shortly after trial — it cannot be said that the hearing to investigate the fairness of the trial was meaningful. Even Judge Levin admitted that he could not remember much of what had transpired with juror Ball. Expecting Johnson to disprove the state courts’ findings of harmlessness on the basis of the record as it stands is expecting too much when those findings were based on a sparsity of probative information.
The panel majority also notes that the jury’s verdicts do not suggest a jury prejudiced against Johnson. But verdicts of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter also afford an adequate basis for concluding that a compromise by the jurors so they could achieve a result and go home was reached, not that the jury impartially decided beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson was guilty of one crime yet not guilty of another.
I respectfully dissent.