Court Opinion

ID: 9492999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:55:14.682846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:35.563314
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the court that the district court properly dismissed Clayton Jack*1111son’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion alleging that Alan Robbins’ testimony in another pro-, ceeding warrants a new trial. I also concur, reluctantly, with the court’s remand for an evidentiary hearing on the jury tampering issue. I believe that United States v. Dutkel, 192 F.3d 893 (9th Cir.1999), and United States v. Angulo, 4 F.3d 843 (9th Cir.1993), compel this result.
I write separately, however, to reiterate the position I expressed in my concurrence in Dutkel regarding the presumption of prejudice in cases of alleged jury tampering. See id. at 899 (O’Scannlain, J., concurring). I believe that by failing to acknowledge, contrary to three other circuits,1 that the presumption of prejudice in alleged jury tampering cases established by Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 74 S.Ct. 450, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954), has since been modified by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 102 S.Ct. 940, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982), and United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), we have veered dangerously close to “delegating] to every reprobate the power to effect a mistrial.” United States v. Williams, 737 F.2d 594, 612 (7th Cir.1984). We now have a hair trigger in this circuit for evi-dentiary hearings in cases of alleged jury tampering and we have placed too heavy a burden on the government at such hearings. While I concur in the court’s disposition because I am bound by our circuit precedent, I continue to believe that the teaching of Phillips and Olano is that when defendants allege jury tampering, they “must establish that prejudice was likely to have resulted before the government should be required to prove the harmlessness of the intrusion.” Dutkel, 192 F.3d at 899 (O’Scannlain, J., concurring). To hold otherwise is to invite mischief on a defendant’s behalf sufficient to cause a mistrial by concocting threats in ways that can not be traced back to their source.

. See United States v. Sylvester, 143 F.3d 923 (5th Cir.1998); United States v. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d 490 (D.C.Cir.1996); United States v. Zelinka, 862 F.2d 92 (6th Cir.1988).