Any appellate court decision that begins with a scene from Twelve Angry Men, and Stephen Reinhardt’s opinion from the 9th Circuit in  Williams v. Cavazos does not disappoint.  The crime was somewhat pedestrian, your basic liquor store robbery gone south, leaving the owner dead on the floor.  The defendant, Tara Sheneva Williams sat in the car behind the wheel. 

During deliberations, there was one juror, Number 6, who wouldn’t go along with the program. The others weren’t amused.  Neither was the judge who, after questioning the jury foreman about the evils committed by Number 6 during deliberations, discharged him from the jury for bias.

Rather, the court found that the juror was “biased” for five overlapping reasons: (1) “the fact that he added his own words to the court’s instructions as to what the law is,” which “indicates where his mind is bent towards and that is biased against the prosecution in the matter”; (2) “his repeating of the severity of the charge in conjunction with his bringing up the subject of juror nullification,” which “establishes his state of mind that he’s bent in that regard, that he’s concerned about the severity of the charge, which means the severity of the punishment”; (3) when the judge “asked him what burden of proof he was relying on, he said it was a [sic] very, very convinced beyond a reasonable doubt,” which the judge believed to mean “higher than beyond a reasonable doubt because the charge is murder”; (4) the fact that “[h]e also disagrees with the felony murder rule”; and (5) the fact that “[h]e’s dishonest to me in stating that no juror including himself had discussed the severity of the charge, had not discussed juror nullification.”

Primary among the court’s reasons for tossing the wayward jury out on his ear in mid-deliberations was that “his mind is bent towards and that is biased against the prosecution in the matter.”  Didn’t anybody tell the juror that he’s supposed to be biased the other way?  A guy like that could keep the jury tied up forever, and that would make his fellow jurors very unhappy. 

As the 9th Circuit held, it didn’t concern the judge that the juror held a reasonable belief that the evidence was insufficient.

[T]he record discloses a “reasonable possibility that the impetus for [Juror No. 6’s] dismissal stems from the juror’s views on the merits of the case.” At least seven jurors expressed the view that Juror No. 6 did not believe that the evidence was sufficient to prove guilt of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, thereby making a total of two-thirds of the panel…. The juror’s views regarding the insufficiency of the evidence were thus made known to the prosecution as the result of a rigorous inquiry into the thought process and reasoning of Juror No. 6. Neither the trial court nor the Court of Appeal, however, even mentioned this clear evidence regarding the juror’s views as to the merits, or acknowledged the strong possibility that Juror No. 6 was a holdout juror for legitimate reasons….

What’s appalling about this, aside from the act of discharging a juror because he wasn’t cooperating in conviction, is that it came to the attention of the judge, as well as the rest of the courtroom.  The notion that jury deliberations are to be conducted in secret so that jurors can speak freely, and act in accordance with their conscience without fear that their deliberations will be revealed publicly, was utterly trashed.  Here were the notes sent out by the foreman:

Two days after the jurors began deliberations, the jury foreman delivered two notes to the trial court. The first read: 

Relative to jury instruction 17.[41].1, I wish to inform you that we have one juror who: 1) has expressed an intention to disregard the law . . . and 2) has expressed concern relative to the severity of the charge (1st degree murder).

The second asked:

Is it legally permissible for a juror to interpret page 32 of the jury instructions to mean that the conspiracy should involve a plan to commit a specific robbery, rather than a general plan to commit robberies in the future?

The phrasing of these notes isn’t terribly consequential, as jurors aren’t expected to play lawyer and express their concerns in the manner of a lawyer or judge.  And that they give rise to a need for limited inquiry is understandable, particularly where a note suggests that a juror might have misunderstood the meaning of an instruction.  But the court’s response to the notes is what matters.

The first note, stating that the juror was “expressed an intention to disregard the law” requires that an inquiry be made, but that inquiry isn’t into the specific thought processes of the juror.

Accordingly, in deciding whether to discharge a juror mid-deliberation, the critical Sixth Amendment questions are whether, after an appropriately limited inquiry, it can be said that there is no reasonable possibility that the juror’s discharge stems from his views of the merits…

If anything, the court should reiterate its instructions to follow the law as given, and send the jurors back to work.  As to the second note, the court should reiterate the instructions on conspiracy to commit robbery.  And finally, the judge should remind the jurors of their oath to follow the law as given. 

What should not be done is the “rigorous inquiry into the thought process and reasoning of Juror No. 6” in order to ascertain why he doesn’t want to convict the way the court thinks he should.

It’s generally the case that a court, through its ability to rationalize its actions regardless of its true purpose, can screw with pretty much anything it chooses, including justifying its discharge of a recalcitrant juror, or one whose sensibilities goes toward nullification rather than conviction.  Remarkably, the 9th Circuit’s decision cuts through the rhetoric and gets to the bottom line.

Neither the trial court nor the Court of Appeal, however, even mentioned this clear evidence regarding the juror’s views as to the merits, or acknowledged the strong possibility that Juror No. 6 was a holdout juror for legitimate reasons….

The whole point of a jury, of twelve angry men if that’s what it turns out to be, is that each individual juror is entitled, actually required, to vote against conviction if he believes, for whatever reasons, that the evidence is insufficient.  That’s part of the instructions as well.  And a juror’s “bent” against conviction is every bit as legitimate a position as the typical juror “bent” the other way.

H/T Eugene Volokh