Court Opinion

ID: 9469682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:46:26.412166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:30.508901
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I cannot accept the conclusion of the majority that the district court in this case appropriately exercised its discretion in determining that the presence, in the jury room, of these extraneous and improper documents could not have affected the jury verdict. The interest of the jury here in the “Mexican Mafia” report was so intense that' it asked the trial judge for another opportunity to examine the prejudicial document in the course of its deliberations. Whatever criteria of review may be invoked, it seems to me to depart wholly from reality to suggest that there was not a “reasonable possibility” that this wayward document influenced the verdict.
As the original panel opinion in this case noted, the prior decisions of this circuit strongly indicate that, in reviewing a district court’s determination that no prejudice resulted from a jury’s exposure to materials not properly within its consideration, an appellate court is entitled, and may indeed be required, to examine for itself the question whether there was a “reasonable possibility” that the extraneous material affected the jury’s verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Thomas, 463 F.2d 1061, 1065 (7th Cir. 1972); United States v. Grady, 185 F.2d 273, 275 (7th Cir. 1950); United States v. Dressler, 112 F.2d 972, 978 (7th Cir. 1940). See also Llewellyn v. Stynchcombe, 609 F.2d 194, 195 (5th Cir. 1980); United States v. Vasquez, 597 F.2d 192, 193 & n.l (9th Cir. 1979) (citing cases from other circuits). The majority’s failure to distinguish, or even deal with, these cases in its discussion of the “paucity of relevant decisions,” ante at 940, is puzzling.
Equally disturbing is the majority’s reliance on Marshall v. United States, 360 U.S. 310, 79 S.Ct. 1171, 3 L.Ed.2d 1250 (1959). In Marshall, the Supreme Court reversed, per curiam, the “no prejudice” determinations of both a trial court and a court of appeals, and ruled that the possibility of prejudice resulting from several jurors’ exposure to newspaper articles about the defendant necessitated the grant of a new trial. In my view, both the analysis and the result reached in Marshall support the panel’s original decision in this case.1
*943I, therefore, incorporate by reference in my dissent the panel opinion 2 (which I originally joined) authored by Senior Circuit Judge Fairchild, formerly Chief Judge of this Circuit, which meticulously and with a salutory regard for the ordinary requirements of a fair trial, reversed these convictions. Senior Circuit Judge Gibson dissented from that opinion, in large part, on the ground that defense counsel was in some way responsible for the submission of the “Mexican Mafia” document to the jury — a theory on which the majority here does not rely.

. The majority’s reliance on Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 31 S.Ct. 2, 54 L.Ed. 1021 (1910), is similarly misplaced. The precise issue addressed by the Supreme Court in Holt was whether the district court abused its discretion in allowing the jury to separate, in light *943of the high probability that the jurors, “if allowed to separate, will see something of the public prints.” 218 U.S. at 250, 31 S.Ct. at 5. In answering this question in the negative, the Supreme Court stated
As to the [district judge’s] exercise of discretion, it is to be remembered that the statutes or decisions of many states expressly allow the separation of the jury even in capital cases.... If the mere opportunity for prejudice or corruption is to raise a presumption that they exist, it will be hard to maintain jury trial under the conditions of the present day.
Id. at 250-51, 31 S.Ct. at 5-6.
Given the rather unique focus of the Supreme Court in Holt, it is difficult for me to believe that a single sentence from that case controls our decision here.

. Reprinted at 662 F.2d 450 (7th Cir. 1981).