Court Opinion

ID: 9462149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:33:10.362804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:25.567972
License: Public Domain

*238MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I disagree with the majority’s view regarding the trial judge’s fixing of a time limit upon the jury’s deliberations. In my view, the judge improperly set a time limit for completion of trial and jury deliberations, with the result that in this complex case which required over 10 weeks for trial the jury was forced to reach a verdict within 12 hours.
On July 15, 1974, after trial had been in progress for more than 9 weeks, the trial judge, in response to expressions of concern by one of the twelve jurors regarding her vacation plans, promised her that he would finish the case by Tuesday, July 23rd so that she could leave on her vacation by Wednesday, July 24, 1974.1 The colloquy in which this promise was made was as follows:
THE COURT . . .
“If we didn’t finish on Friday, more than likely we would finish by Monday or Tuesday of the following week. You will give me until Tuesday?
“JUROR NO. 5: Yes.'
“THE COURT: How does that sound?
“JUROR NO. 5: That is fine with me, Judge.
“MR. RQSEN: That is very fair, Judge.
“THE COURT: That is my promise to you. If it’s not, you are going to be leaving — Tuesday will be the last day you are here. You will be leaving on Wednesday, I make that promise to you.” (Tr. 3953).
When Juror No. 11 then advised that she, too, was supposed to go on vacation the following week the court made the identical promise, stating “I promised her [Juror No. 5] by Tuesday the case would be over and they would be out of here by Wednesday next week. Is that okay with you, too? ” Juror No. 11 replied: “That will be okay”. (Tr. 3954).
The case was submitted to the jury on Tuesday, July 23, 1974 at 12:40 p. m., leaving the jury less than 12 hours to deliberate if the trial judge should adhere to his promise. It is true that before submitting the case to the jury the judge gave the standard charge with respect to the jurors’ deliberation duties, including the duty not to surrender an honest conviction, the duty to listen to each other, and the duty not to adhere stubbornly to a position shown to be erroneous. However, the judge’s promise that the jury would “be leaving” and “would be out of here” by Wednesday, July 24th, could well have been reasonably interpreted by the jurors as meaning that they were expected by the court to hurry up their deliberations and reach a verdict on July 23rd, or else they would be discharged. Jurors who needed more time for deliberations with respect to the extensive evidence heard over ten weeks in this complex case would thus be deprived of the opportunity for the careful deliberation to which they were entitled and which the case deserved.
The jury reached its verdict at 9:50 p. m., approximately two hours before the deadline fixed by the court. Whether *239the result would have been different if the jurors had not been faced with a deadline we cannot determine. However, regardless of what the result would have been if the court had allowed ample time for deliberations it was improper for the trial judge to have put pressure on the jurors in this fashion to arrive at a verdict by a given time, United States v. Diamond, 430 F.2d 688, 695—97 (5th Cir. 1970).
“. . . The implicit suggestion, although doubtless unintended, was that it was more important to be quick than to be thoughtful.”
United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 883 (1st Cir. 1970).
Despite the trial court’s erroneous fixing of a time limit on jury deliberations, I concur in the result reached by the majority, since the defendants, either as a matter of strategy or for other reasons best known to themselves, acquiesced in the time table fixed by the court. Although counsel for defendant John Macchirole, who was acquitted, did at one point express apprehension about the coerciveness of the July 23rd deadline he took no steps to have the error corrected, such as by requesting the court to instruct the jury that it should not feel compelled to reach a verdict by July 23rd and that if it did not reach a verdict it would have to continue deliberations thereafter. If a request for such instruction had been made, the trial judge might well have granted it, since the record indicates that he was under the erroneous impression, notwithstanding his earlier, unequivocal promise to the jury, that he had merely advised the jurors that “they would have the case by Tuesday [July 23rd]” and not that they would reach a decision on that date and leave on Wednesday. Absent a clear objection by the defendants and a request for a curative instruction, the issue was waived. United States v. Indiviglio, 352 F.2d 276 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 907, 86 S.Ct. 887, 15 L.Ed.2d 663 (1966).

. The predicament in which the court found itself, which resulted in its promising a deadline for decision, was of its own making. At the outset of trial, before any testimony was taken, the court used all three alternates to fill the places of jurors who were excused, leaving no alternates. Rather than delay trial until additional jurors could be summoned for the selection of more alternates, the court chose, after discussion of the risk that loss of another juror during the long trial could lead to a declaration of mistrial, to proceed with 12 jurors.