United States v. Scott
United States v. Scott
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This case is before the court on the Government’s Amended Motion for Mistrial, (doc. 64),
FACTS
The jury panel from which this jury was selected had originally been called to report for service on May 5, 2014, for a two-week term of court. Their reporting date was continued to May 12, 2014, then to May 13, 2014. The jury was sworn and seated before the lunch recess, during which defendant, complaining of dizziness, went to the emergency room. He spent the next several hours undergoing testing and treatment for extremely high blood pressure. The jury was directed to return at 10:00 a.m. the following morning, May 14, 2014. At 9:00 a.m. that morning, the court had the defendant submit to drug testing by his probation officer, and defendant tested positive for methamphetamine.
At the time th.e jury was originally seated, the government’s first witness, a Drug Enforcement Agency toxicologist who had tested the alleged controlled substances in this case, was at the courthouse ready to testify. However, on May 22, 2014, the toxicologist informed the Assistant United States Attorney that her physician had determined that her pregnancy with twins was “high risk” and she was no longer able to travel from her home in Texas to Alabama to testify. As a result, the alleged controlled substances would need to be resubmitted to the DEA laboratory in Dallas, Texas, for testing by another toxicologist who would then be able to travel to Alabama to testify at trial. This process would take approximately two weeks.
On May 23, 2014, the jury was advised that they should not report on May 27, 2014, that the case had been postponed- and a new date had not yet been determined. The government moved for a mistrial so that it could have another expert retest the alleged controlled substances at issue in this case and testify as to the results. (Doc. 64.) The court was initially inclined to continue the trial instead. (See doc. 72, June 12, 2014 Transcript at 5:3-11.)
The court asked its Jury Administrator to call the jurors to see the first date they were all available. One juror had a prepaid out-of-state vacation set for June 16, one for June 23. (Doc. 72, June 12, 2014 Transcript at 3; doc. 68-1.) One Juror had a family reunion to attend, another had an out-of-town baseball tournament for her child on June 30. (Id.) The court was unavailable the week of July 7. (Doc. 72, June 12, 2014 Transcript at 7.) One juror was unavailable the week of July 14. (Id.) One juror had a prepaid out-of-state vacation from July 19-30. (Doc. 68-1.) In the end “there[ was] not a date that all 12 jurors [were] available.” (Doc. 72, June 12, 2014 Transcript at 30:16-18). One juror was moving to Atlanta, Georgia, the week of July 28, to begin graduate school. (Id. at 23:4-5). The only way defendant could be tried by members of the original jury, other than by haling at least one juror into court long after the juror’s original term of service had expired and causing him or her hardship, was for the defendant to consent to a trial.by eleven. Defendant and his attorney discussed this possibility, and the court gave defendant a few additional days to consult his family. (Id. at 33.) The court specifically advised defendant that if he did not consent, the court would declare a mistrial and the question of double jeopardy would arise, but that the court would deny a motion to dismiss the indictment. (Id. at 31-32.)
As was his right, defendant did not consent to trial by eleven. (Doc. 67.)
ANALYSIS
The Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against any person “being twice put in
This case presents two questions: (1) whether by declining to stipulate to a jury of eleven, a defendant may, in some cases, be presumed to consent to a declaration of mistrial, eliminating the Double Jeopardy concern consistent with Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 608-609, 96 S.Ct. 1075; if not, (2) whether manifest necessity to declare a mistrial exists.
In United States v. Davis, 708 F.3d 1216 (11th Cir. 2013), after a twelve-member, no-alternate jury was empaneled and sworn, two jurors informed the court that they might not be able to serve: one because she was an hourly employee who estimated that she would lose $1,000 to jury duty, one because she could not understand English very well. Id. at 1218-19. The court excused the jurors, Davis did not consent to trial by ten or suggest swearing in additional jurors,
1. Explicit Objection, Implicit Consent to Mistrial
Defendant explicitly objected to a declaration of mistrial here. (See doc. 66.) Dinitz held that, with one exception,
United States v. Larouche Campaign, 866 F.2d 512 (1st Cir. 1989), is a closer case. There, the defendants asked the trial court to excuse five of the jurors for hardship and the court did so, leaving only ten jurors, but the defendants then declined to stipulate to trial by ten and the court declared a mistrial. Id. at 513. In affirming the denial of the defendants’ subsequent motion to dismiss their indictments, the First Circuit, speaking through then-judge Breyer, recognized that “[t]he important consideration ... is that the defendant retain primary control over the course to be followed,” id. at 514-515 (quoting Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 609, 96 S.Ct. 1075) (emphasis added in Larouche Campaign ), and held that “the Double Jeopardy Clause could pose no greater bar to
The question is whether this logic can be carried a step further. When faced—for whatever reason, absent actions intended to provoke the defendant to request a mistrial—with a jury of eleven, if a defendant refuses to proceed, can the defendant be deemed to have elected to terminate the first trial, forfeiting any Double Jeopardy objection to retrial? The court believes that logic says yes.
“The important consideration, for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, is that the defendant retain primary control over the course to be followed.... ” Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 609, 96 S.Ct. 1075. Once this court informed defendant and his counsel that no trial date could be set in which the court would not excuse at least one of the remaining twelve jurors from service, (see doc. 72, June 12, 2014 Transcript at 30-31), defendant had his Dinitz choice: stipulate to a jury of eleven “and, perhaps, end the dispute then and there with an acquittal,” id. at 608, 96 S.Ct. 1075 (quoting Jorn, 400 U.S. at 484, 91 S.Ct. 547), or hold fast to his Rule 23(b) right to insist on a jury of twelve and force a mistrial. Defendant retained “primary control” over the direction of the trial from that point on—in fact, the court gave defendant a few days to talk with his family about what course he should take. (See doc. ,72, June 14, 2014 Transcript at 33.) When this court accommodated the jurors’ schedules after the initial court session for which they were called had expired, it did not do so “intending] to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial,” see Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 679, 102 S.Ct. 2083, or even intending for the circumstances to lead to a mistrial, much less “by judicial ... impropriety designed to avoid an acquittal,” id. at 678-679, 102 S.Ct. 2083 (quoting Jorn, 400 U.S. at 485 n. 12, 91 S.Ct. 547). Indeed, the court repeatedly reminded defendant that he could avoid mistrial by consenting to trial by eleven of the original twelve jurors. Why certain jurors were accommodated had nothing to do with their potential biases in the case; it was only a result of the juror’s particular hardship after their initial term of service was over. And even if the Supreme Court had found compelling the Oregon Court of Appeal’s concern that consent was not real when defendant faced a “Hobson’s choice,” which the Court did not, this was no Hob-son’s choice: proceeding with less than twelve would not have been “to accept a necessarily prejudiced jury,” see Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 670, 102 S.Ct. 2083. Twelve is a historic number, maybe even a mystical number, as the Court once speculated, but it is not a constitutionally—or even a pragmatically-required number. See Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 86-88, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Fed. R.CrimP. 23(b) advisory committee’s note. Defendant would not be prejudiced by trial by eleven.
Since the defendant at all times retained the option to proceed with a jury of eleven, he retained one of the interests the Double Jeopardy clause affords him: his interest in “having the trial concluded in a single proceeding,” which minimizes the “financial and emotional burden on the accused” and the “period in which he is stigmatized
In sum, defendant was not damned if he did, damned if he didn’t; he had a strategic choice to make, one even easier than the one faced by the defendants in Miller, Dinitz, and Kennedy, since defendant can claim no prejudice by • (or constitutional protection from) trial by eleven. That he chose to insist on twelve is his Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b) right, but the product of exercising that right in the circumstances presented to him is a mistrial, and he cannot now call upon the Double Jeopardy clause to save him from his choice.
2. Manifest Necessity
After the jury was empaneled in this case, defendant became incapacitated. He was determined to be incapable of proceeding for a period of four to five days, which necessitated a continuance of his trial. His jury was informed to return two weeks later to resume the trial. However, before the date set for the continuation of the. proceeding, the Government’s witness was determined .to be unable to travel due to complications in her pregnancy. ' This witness was present and available to testify on May 14, 2014, before defendant’s illness required a continuance.
Before deciding to declare a mistrial, this court considered continuing the trial to some other date on which the jury members were available. However, based .on information from the Jury Administrator, the court determined that all twelve jurors were not available on any subsequent date. A number of weeks eleven of the twelve original jurors were available; however, as stated above, Mr. .Scott did not waive his right to trial by twelve jurors.
The Supreme Court has noted that “a criminal trial is, even in the best of circumstances, a complicated affair to manage. The proceedings are dependent in the first instance on the elementary sort of considerations, e.g., the health of the various
CONCLUSION
In the sometimes zero-sum game of balancing a defendant’s “valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal,” Washington, 434 U.S. at 503, 98 S.Ct. 824, with the “countervailing interest of proper judicial administration,” see Somerville, 410 U.S. at 471, 93 S.Ct. 1066, in perhaps not so “very plain and obvious cases,” Perez, 9 Wheat, at 580, it is important to remember the most basic protection the Double Jeopardy Clause offers, one which has been—and hopefully will always be—a fortress: “If the defendant is acquitted by the jury, or if he is convicted and the conviction is upheld on appeal, he may not be prosecuted again for the same offense,” Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 682, 102 S.Ct. 2083 (Stevens, J., concurring); see also United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 92, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978) (“[T]he primary purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause was to protect the integrity of a final judgment... .”).
For the reasons stated above, the court finds that a declaration of mistrial is a manifest necessity in this case and that defendant can be deemed to have waived any objection to reprosecution.
. Reference to a document number, ("Doc. -”), references to the number assigned each document as it is filed in the court's record.
. Any motion to dismiss the
.Defendant contended that this was a false positive resulting from use of over-the-counter medication, but defendant was asked several times at the hospital whether he had taken any kind of medication and he repeatedly denied it.
. The court believes that attempting to replace any excused jurors by recalling members of the original venire, a route not suggested by either party, is not a workable possibility in this case.
. "The Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrial requests....” 424 U.S. at 611, 96 S.Ct. 1075.
. For a definition of a "Hobson's Choice”, see N.L.R.B. v. CER Inc., 762 F.2d 482, 486 n. 7 (5th Cir. 1985) ("The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 675 (unabridged ed. 1969) defines Hobson’s choice as ‘the choice of taking either that which is offered or nothing; the absence of a real choice or alternative [after Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), of Cambridge, England, who rented horses and gave his customer only one choice, that of the horse nearest the stable door].’ ”).
. Trial by twelve is not something that a defendant can insist upon at all times. Once the jury has begun deliberations, the court may excuse a juror and permit the remaining eleven to return a verdict even over the defendant’s objection. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 23(b)(3). This fact shatters any claim that making a defendant choose between trial by the remaining original jurors or mistrial and retrial by a new twelve-member jury is somehow so unfair a dilemma as to not really be a waiver of a Double Jeopardy objection if defendant chooses to insist upon trial by twelve and cause a mistrial.
. At the risk of making something of nothing, the court notes one assumption made by the holding of waiver in this case. In other cases finding waiver of Double Jeopardy protection, the opportunity remained for the defendant to exercise a "valued right to have his guilt or innocence determined before the first trier of fact,” United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 93, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978), or "before the jury first empaneled to try him,” id. at 96, 98 S.Ct. 2187; see Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 673, 102 S.Ct. 2083; Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 608, 96 S.Ct. 1075 ("first jury”); Jorn, 400 U.S. at 485, 91 S.Ct. 547 ("a particular tribunal”), even where that jury was potentially tainted. Finding waiver here assumes that defendant has retained that “valued right.” In other words, finding waiver here assumes that a defendant still has the crucial decision-making power, the "primary control” over the case's direction held necessary in Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 609, 96 S.Ct. 1075, when the defendant can proceed to a verdict given by eleven of the original twelve jurors, even if it will not be a verdict given by the exact, twelve-mem-bér "jury first empaneled to try him.” Cf. Williams, 399 U.S. at 86-88, 90 S.Ct. 1893 (twelve is not special); Fed.R.Crim.P. 23(b)(3) (giving court power to allow a "jury of 11 persons to return a verdict” after excusing a juror during deliberations); United States v. Blankenship, 382 F.3d 1110, 1119 n. 20 (11th Cir. 2004) (noting that the Double Jeopardy Clause gives defendants "the constitutional right to have a verdict from the specific jury actually hearing their case (with due allowances made for alternates and the like).”).
The text of the Double Jeopardy Clause simply provides that no person shall "be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const amend. V. It would be strange indeed if that Clause reached so far into the minutiae of the composition of the jury, when the Sixth Amendment, specifically providing for jury trials, did not.
. The power to excuse jurors is left to the court’s discretion by statute: "any person summoned for jury service may be (1) excused by the court ... upon a showing of undue hardship or extreme inconvenience, for such period as the court deems necessary....” 28 U.S.C. § 1866(c). And while the statute ultimately leaves it up to the court to decide what constitutes "undue hardship or extreme inconvenience,” here are the court’s guiding lights:
"undue hardship or extreme inconvenience,” as a basis for excuse from immediate jury service under section 1866(c)(1) of this chapter, shall mean great distance, either in miles or traveltime, from the place of holding court, grave illness in the family or any other emergency which outweighs in immediacy and urgency the obligation to serve as a juror when summoned, or any other factor which the court determines to constitute an undue hardship or to create an extreme inconvenience to the juror....
28 U.S.C. § 1869(j) (emphasis added).
. Declaring a mistrial and allowing retrial with a fresh jury that has not been strung along for weeks is decidedly more benign than one of the "abhorrent practices” that the Clause was penned to condemn: "English judges serv[ing] the Stuart monarchs by exercising a power to discharge a jury whenever it appeared that the Crown’s evidence would be insufficient to convict.” Washington, 434 U.S. at 507, 98 S.Ct. 824.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Phillip Don SCOTT
- Status
- Published