Court Opinion

ID: 9858252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:19:16.682079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:41.156429
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
concurring opinion on state’s motion for rehearing of appellant’s petition for discretionary review.
Appellant is the defendant in an aggravated robbery prosecution. Midway through trial of the case, one of the jurors realized that appellant’s father is a close Mend of his. He informed the trial judge that he could no longer be fair and asked to be excused from further jury service. The State then moved for a mistrial, claiming that the juror could not render an impartial verdict. The appellant objected, announcing that he would be content to proceed in spite of the juror’s bias or, in the alternative, with only eleven jurors.
The law provides that a felony verdict may not be returned by fewer than twelve jurors unless one of the jurors “may die or be disabled from sitting at any time before the charge of the court is read to the jury[.]” Tex.Code Crim.Proc. art. 36.29(a). Our precedents establish that a bias or prejudice in favor of or against the defendant is not a disability within the meaning of this statute. Carrillo v. State, 597 S.W.2d 769 (Tex.Crim.App.1980). Accordingly, the trial judge was not authorized by article 36.29 to resume trial of this case with only eleven jurors sitting. Evidently believing that he should not continue with a biased juror either, the judge decided to declare a mistrial and begin again with a new panel. Appellant initiated the instant habeas corpus proceeding in the district court to contest this decision.
Appellant insists that any further prosecution of the case will violate double jeopardy prohibitions of the United States Constitution. Both the district court and the El Paso Court of Appeals disagree. We granted discretionary review to examine the latter’s rationale for this conclusion.
The Court of Appeals reasoned that the biased juror was not disabled, and that the trial judge did not therefore excuse him from further service under authority of article 36.29. Instead, the Court of Appeals explained, the trial judge evidently believed that the juror could not render an impartial verdict, that declaring a mistrial was manifestly necessary on account of the juror’s bias, and that no reasonable alternatives were available. Hernandez v. State, 08-93-00100-CR (Tex.App. — El Paso 12/1/93).
Today, we give our approval to this assessment, concluding that “[mjanifest necessity existed for the trial judge to declare a mistrial in that it was not an alternative for the trial court to continue the appellant’s felony trial without the mandatory twelve jurors required under Article 36.29(a), VA.C.C.P.” Op. at 932. Although I am willing to join the Court’s opinion, this conclusory declaration is a bit too perfunctory for my taste. In particular, it fails to address germane precedent upon which appellant relies and which, in some respects, supports his position. Accordingly, I write separately to put a little flesh on the bare bones of our lead opinion.
The main authority for appellant’s view that less drastic alternatives than the declaration of a mistrial were available in this case is Carrillo. That case presented a similar factual scenario in which the trial judge and the parties took positions opposite to those of the parties in this case. Thus, when the juror in Carrillo decided that she could no longer be fair, the trial judge overruled appellant’s demand for a mistrial and proceeded over appellant’s objection with only eleven jurors. Holding that personal bias does not count as a disability under article 36.29, a three-judge panel of this Court then proceeded gratuitously to hold, without citation of any authority, that
the trial court before discharging the juror should have advised the appellant he would continue the trial without discharging the juror unless the appellant either agreed to *934continue the trial with eleven jurors or asked for a mistrial. The court should then, depending on the appellant’s election, have granted a mistrial or continued with eleven jurors. If the appellant refused to make an election the court should not have discharged the juror, but continued the trial without discharging the juror. The trial court erred in failing to give the appellant an opportunity to choose between continuing with eleven jurors or seeking a mistrial.
Carrillo, 597 S.W.2d at 771.
In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Apart from the fact that these observations were entirely unnecessary to disposition of the issue presented on appeal and were evidently cut from whole cloth on the spot, they are also plainly contrary to the express language of the statute. Our law absolutely and unambiguously requires that no less than twelve jurors subscribe to all felony verdicts unless, before the case is submitted for jury consideration, one of them dies or becomes disabled. This is plainly not a right of the defendant which he can waive or forfeit at his option. See Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.Crim.App.1998). I would, therefore, disapprove the language of Carrillo to the extent it suggests that a criminal defendant has an option under article 36.29 to proceed to verdict with eleven jurors when the twelfth is not dead or disabled. Although our lead opinion in this case amounts to such a disapproval by necessary implication, it would have been better for the trial bench and bar alike had the Court expressed its holding more candidly.
With this peculiar problem of Texas law resolved against appellant’s position, the remainder of his contentions can be dispatched in short order. Because the trial judge could not proceed with only eleven jurors, discharging the biased juror was not an alternative to declaring a mistrial. Accordingly, the propriety of a successive prosecution in this case turns upon whether participation of the biased juror was sufficient for the conclusion that an impartial verdict could not be reached. If it was, then declaration of a mistrial was manifestly necessary under controlling United States Supreme Court precedent. Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 98 S.Ct. 824, 54 L.Ed.2d 717 (1978).
Appellant argues that juror bias does not make a mistrial manifestly necessary. But his argument is founded exclusively upon the proposition that bias does not qualify as a disability under article 36.29. It does not follow from this circumstance of Texas statutory law that juror bias is irrelevant to the question of manifest necessity under the United States Constitution. On the contrary, the Supreme Court has made it clear that a likelihood jurors will be prejudiced against the State, even if arising from an ordinarily curable circumstance such as improper opening argument, may present such a compelling reason for the declaration of a mistrial that successive prosecution is not jeopardy barred. Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 98 S.Ct. 824, 54 L.Ed.2d 717. Surely the actual bias of an individual juror presents an equally compelling case.
Appellant also maintains that the juror here in question was not proven to be biased with enough certainty that the declaration of a mistrial became manifestly necessary. He contends that it was not proper for the Court of Appeals to rely upon cases in which prospective jurors were excluded from jury service on account of their prejudices, since the trial judge has more discretion to exclude a juror than to declare a mistrial. But this argument once again misses the point. The cases relied upon by the Court of Appeals only illustrate some of the circumstances under which Texas law properly regards jurors as being biased. Because a bias in favor of the defendant is undoubtedly a circumstance which may justify aborting a trial without jeopardy consequences under the United States Constitution, it seems entirely appropriate to consult jury selection cases on the broad general issue of what constitutes such a bias. Doing so is not tantamount to the application of a less rigorous reviewing standard than the law requires.
When we say that exclusion for cause of a veniremember is subject to appellate review *935only for an abuse of discretion, we do not mean to suggest that the trial judge has discretion to remove qualified venire-members from jury service. Instead, we mean to emphasize only that the judge is a factfinder in such cases, and that his findings are entitled to the same deference as those of other institutional factfinders. In short, we are resolved to uphold his findings unless there is insufficient evidence to support them. A different standard of review is not called for when reviewing a trial judge’s decision to declare a mistrial. So long as the basis for mistrial is legally allowable, the evidence upon which the trial judge relies for his conclusion that the basis exists is reviewable on appeal in the same way as are other findings of fact. Whether the declaration of a mistrial was manifestly necessary in the instant cause is, therefore, a question of fact, not a standard of review.* It follows that reviewing the sufficiency of evidence to prove manifest necessity according to the so-called abuse of discretion standard does not impugn the manifest necessity standard for determining whether retrial is jeopardy barred.
Thus, the El Paso Court of Appeals did not err in any of the respects claimed by appellant on discretionary review. It did not err to hold that juror bias may present a manifest necessity for the declaration of a mistrial over the objection of an accused. It did not err to hold that proceeding to verdict with only eleven jurors is not an available alternative under Texas law when the twelfth juror is neither dead nor disabled. And finally, it did not err to hold that factfindings about juror bias should be reviewed on appeal only for an abuse of discretion, as in other cases of evidentiary review. Accordingly, I join the opinion of the Court.
MALONEY, J., joins.

 We have not been asked, nor would it be appropriate for us, to review the factual conclusion of the lower appellate court that the juror in question was actually biased. Consistent with our policy to confine discretionary review to questions of law, we prudently express no opinion on this question. See Arcila v. State, 834 S.W.2d 357 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).