Court Opinion

ID: 9713398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:14:45.399072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.585073
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
concurring and dissenting in part:
While I concur with the'majority on the issues presented in Parts I through IV, I must respectfully dissent to the conclusion reached in Part V.
I am acutely aware that the public policy reasons for exerting caution in the area of jury verdict impeachment are well established and warrant this court’s deference. However, where a misinterpretation of law causes at least two-thirds of a jury to convict a defendant they have intended to absolve of criminal liability, serious constitutional questions of due process arise. I therefore think that, under these circumstances, a court is compelled to balance the possible public injury of undermining verdict finality against the possible private in*983jury to a litigant amounting to deprivation of a constitutional right.
The record in this case shows that on Monday following a jury verdict of guilty of manslaughter, returned on Thursday, the foreman wrote the court:
Dear Honorable Hannon,
The unanimous decision of the jury in the case of the United States versus Andre Sellers was that he killed in self-defense. However, the verdict that we announced, and verbally agreed to in open court, did not convey that verdict. Therefore, we request that the jury be reconvened so that we can rectify our error.
Thank you for your consideration.
Herbert A. Brown
Foreman
Thereafter the court reconvened in chambers for a hearing with the twelve jurors, the parties and counsel present. At this time, juror after juror (nine in all) testified under oath in essence: “I understood manslaughter was [killing in] self defense”, “Self defense was what I was aiming at”; “I was saying that he was acting in self defense”; “the verdict in the jury lounge is that he acted in self defense.” Only three of the jurors testified that they adhered to, or meant to convict of, manslaughter. It is against this backdrop that we must assess the trial court’s denial of post-conviction motions, including motions to vacate the verdict and for judgment of acquittal.1
The threshold question is whether such testimony would be admissible to test the validity of a verdict. The general rule proscribing impeachment of jury verdicts establishes a major exception, which permits the introduction of juror evidence tending “to prove something which did not essentially inhere in the verdict . . . .” Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 149, 13 S.Ct. 50, 53, 36 L.Ed. 917 (1892). Thus, for example, while evidence is not admissible to show the mental processes by which a verdict is determined, testimony is admissible to show extraneous matters coming to the attention of one or more jurors which might interfere with a constitutional right. See Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363, 87 S.Ct. 468, 17 L.Ed.2d 420 (1966).
Juror confusion on instructions per se would be classified as a matter which inheres in the verdict itself (United States v. Chereton, 309 F.2d 197, 201 (6th Cir. 1962)); and I agree that the clear weight of authority would indeed suggest that a juror’s testimony attesting to such confusion should not be admissible. See ABA Standards Relating to Trial by Jury § 5.7(a) at 171.
Nevertheless, in examining the rationale for the no-impeachment rule, there is room for a less than wooden application. Public policy reasons for protecting the verdict are less persuasive when applied to other than the more intimate and personal aspects of jury deliberations. See ABA Standards, supra at 170. Thus Mattox v. United States, supra, suggests that the rationale for disallowing a matter resting in the consciousness *984of one juror to impeach a jury verdict is the inaccessibility of juror mental process to the testimony of other jurors:
Public policy forbids that a matter resting in the personal consciousness of one juror should be received to overthrow the verdict, because, being personal, it is not accessible to other testimony. It gives to the secret thought of one the power to disturb the expressed conclusions of twelve. . . But as to overt acts, they are accessible to the knowledge of all the jurors. . . [Id. at 148-49, 13 S.Ct., at 52-53, citing Perry v. Bailey, 12 Kan. 539, 545 (1874).]
However this case does not present a situation where a juror was required to testify as to personal mental processes in reaching a conclusion, or where the secret consciousness of one, if inquired into, could be used to overthrow the conclusions of others. Here the jury knew that two-thirds of its members had concluded that the defendant was not criminally liable. Here it was possible for nine jurors to [and they did] testify to this conclusion of nonculpa-bility as a fact and also to their acceptance of an erroneous legal definition in expressing (as opposed to reaching) this fact of nonculpability.
The issue here, therefore, is not so much one of the impeachment of a verdict as it is one of ascertaining the true verdict or whether there was a verdict at all. See Freid v. McGrath, 77 U.S.App.D.C. 385, 135 F.2d 833 (1943).
If an agreement reached in the jury room is not correctly expressed in the verdict returned into open court, relief is not foreclosed by the no-impeachment rule. See Young v. United States, 168 F.2d 242, 247 (10th Cir.) (Phillips, J., concurring), cert. denied, 334 U.S. 859, 68 S.Ct. 1533, 92 L.Ed. 1779 (1948); Young v. United States, 163 F.2d 187 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 332 U.S. 770, 68 S.Ct. 83, 92 L.Ed. 355 (1947).
In the instant case the error in reporting nonculpability was promptly brought to the attention of the court on the second business day after its return and on the jury’s own volition. All twelve jurors were reassembled in chambers for a complete inquiry which confirmed the error. The court was empowered to correct the verdict so that it would express the conclusion reached and agreed upon by the jury or, in the alternative, to determine that no verdict had been reached. In my view, it was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to reject partly on the strength of its own assessment of the record,2 the jury’s request to correct the record.
We have here a case distinguished by a unique set of facts requiring a remedy in the interest of justice. In the exercise of this court’s supervisory power I would create a narrow exception to the general rule disallowing jury verdict impeachment. I would reverse3 and remand the case for the vacation of the judgment of guilty on the manslaughter charge and order a new trial.

. The court correctly instructed as to self-defense, in part:
As I’ve said to you, the defense in this case is self defense. So what, then are the elements of self defense which is required to consider in connection with this case?
Every person, ladies and gentlemen has a right to use a reasonable amount of force in self defense if he actually believes that he is in imminent danger of bodily harm and if he has reasonable grounds for this belief. The question is not whether you believe, in retrospect, that the use of force was necessary. The question is whether the defendant, under the circumstances as they appeared to him at the time of the incident, actually believed he was in danger of bodily harm, and could reasonably hold that belief.
The defendant is not required to prove that he acted in self defense.
If evidence of self defense is present, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self defense. If you find that the Government has failed to prove beyond a. reasonable doubt that this defendant did not act in self defense, in connection with the actions he took against both Epluribus Thomas and Clyde Thomas, you must find the defendant not guilty. In other words, if you have a reasonable doubt whether or not the defendant acted in self defense, your verdict must be not guilty.

. In denying the defense motions, the court orally observed:
The Court is very conscious of the fact that nine of those jurors indicated on a Monday morning and subsequently when interrogated by the Court that they felt Mr. Sellars acted in self defense. But the Court has very, very carefully considered the record in this case and the Court agrees with the three jurors that say he is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The evidence in this case is overwhelming. It leaves no question of doubt in my mind but that he is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, if not of second degree murder.
The court’s written order addressed and relied upon no-impeachment concepts.

. The government, in its pleadings before the trial court, conceded that under the facts of this case the finality of the jury’s deliberation might have well been called into question if- the defendant had moved for a new trial on this ground.