Colyer v. State

• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
• Citation: Colyer v. State, 428 S.W.3d 117 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)
• Decision Date: 30 April 2014
• Docket Number: No. PD–0305–13.,PD–0305–13.
• Parties: Wilkie Schell COLYER, Jr., Appellant v. The STATE of Texas.

428 S.W.3d 117

Wilkie Schell COLYER, Jr., Appellant

v.The STATE of Texas.

No. PD–0305–13.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

April 30, 2014.

Justin Sparks, Wm. Reagan Wynn, Kearney & Wynn, Fort Worth, TX, for Appellant.

C. James Gibson, Assistant District Attorney, Fort Worth, TX, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, TX, for the State.

OPINION

COCHRAN, J., delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court.

A jury convicted appellant of driving while intoxicated. The trial judge denied his motion for new trial, which alleged that outside influences were improperly brought to bear on the jury foreman. The court of appeals, over a dissent, held that the trial court abused its discretion in denying appellant's motion for new trial alleging juror misconduct.¹ Because appellant's “outside influence” argument misapplies our holding in McQuarrie v. State,² we granted the State's petition for discretionary review. ³ Personal pressures—such as a fear of inclement weather or concern about a child's illness—are not “outside influences” under Texas Rule of Evidence 606(b). Accordingly, juror testimony about these issues is not admissible. Because appellant failed to prove that the jury's verdict was tainted by juror misconduct, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying appellant's motion for new trial. We therefore reverse the court of appeals.

I.

At about 1:30 a.m., appellant was driving home alone after having dinner with friends. Police found him stopped in the middle of an intersection, passed out behind the wheel. At trial, the State presented a video of appellant's performance on the field sobriety tests and of his refusal to submit to a breath test, as well as testimony from the arresting officer. The defense argued that appellant was overworked and sleep deprived, which caused him to fall asleep at the wheel while waiting for the light to change.

The jury found appellant guilty of DWI. After the jury returned its verdict, the judge asked the jury foreman, Mr. Aguilera, if the verdict was unanimous. Mr. Aguilera responded, “Yes, your Honor.” Based on the foreman's body language while responding, appellant's counsel asked for the jury to be polled.⁴ Mr. Aguilera's initial statement when polled was, “It was a majority—It was—Yes, Your Honor.” When asked to clarify, he said, “We all took a poll and we voted unanimously.”

During the punishment phase, appellant's counsel noted that

the juror said that it was a majority and then I approached the Court about my concern about that wording and his body language, and I just want to put on the record what I noticed was that he appeared upset. He appeared frustrated. He was—He rolled his eyes. He kind of huffed when he was asked.

You then asked him again, and he rolled his eyes and—and just sort of very abruptly said, [“]hahh.[”] I'd also like to point out that—just for the record, we were busy—that we got the note about—dispute about police testimony, then we asked them to clarify ... the clarification came back that it was actually testimony about the defense witness. In the process of us trying to pull that testimony and get it for them, they came back with the verdict pretty abruptly without the testimony transcript being given—the transcript being given to them.

So just based on his body language, his nonverbal expressions and—and what I watched him say when he—after he said it was a majority, which, obviously, legally it has to be unanimous, I would ask the Court to withhold sentencing until a later date.

Two months later, the trial judge sentenced appellant to twenty days in jail, a $550 fine, and a six-month suspension of his driver's license. Appellant filed a motion for new trial, alleging juror misconduct. At the hearing on the motion for new trial, appellant called Mr. Aguilera as his sole witness. From the start, the State opposed the motion, arguing that there was no legal basis for a hearing because “[a]ny evidence outside of the record which the Defense at this time wishes to present to the Court is specifically prohibited by Rule 606(b) of the Texas Rules of Evidence.” The trial judge allowed the hearing to proceed, but limited the scope of the testimony to the two Rule 606(b) exceptions.⁵ The State then objected to the content of Mr. Aguilera's testimony nine separate times.

Mr. Aguilera testified that his verdict was not a fair expression of his opinion due to an array of “outside influences,” including the late time of day, the distance to the parking lot, the approaching inclement weather, ⁶ and the amount of time it was taking to respond to the jury's notes. Mr. Aguilera was particularly affected by a call he received during deliberations from his doctor informing him that his daughter had tested positive for MRSA.⁷ He testified that this call influenced him to change his verdict: “[He] had to concede to the other people and get home to [his] daughter immediately.” He agreed that the deliberations were cut short because all of the jurors were affected by “outside influences.” ⁸

After Mr. Aguilera testified, the State reasserted that “[n]othing that Mr. Aguilera has testified to can even be considered an improper outside influence.... The very purpose of 606(b) is so that defendants don't have an opportunity to relitigate their cases, that they don't have an opportunity to talk to jurors and have them change their minds.” The trial judge denied the motion for new trial without comment.

The court of appeals majority reversed, finding that “the trial court abused its discretion by denying Appellant's motion for new trial.” ⁹ First, because the State did not object to each individual piece of testimony, cross-examine Mr. Aguilera, or present evidence from other jurors to contradict his testimony, the court called Mr. Aguilera's testimony “uncontroverted.” ¹⁰ Next, the court stated that, because the State did not dispute the testimony, there was no need to do a 606(b) analysis.¹¹ Finally, because Mr. Aguilera's testimony unequivocally established that “outside influences” caused him to change his vote, he reached his verdict in a “manner other than a fair expression of the jurors' opinion.” ¹² Therefore, the trial judge should have granted appellant's motion for new trial.¹³

The dissent argued that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion because the telephone call and the weather were “personal pressures,” not outside influences. Therefore, Mr. Aguilera's testimony was inadmissible under Rule 606(b).¹⁴ Furthermore, the dissent noted that the State objected to the entire hearing on Rule 606(b) grounds and repeated this objection throughout, thus, the court of appeals should have applied Rule 606(b).¹⁵

II.

A. Standard of Review

We review a trial judge's denial of a motion for new trial under an abuse of discretion standard.¹⁶ “We do not substitute our judgment for that of the trial court; rather, we decide whether the trial court's decision was arbitrary or unreasonable.” ¹⁷ A trial judge abuses his discretion in denying a motion for new trial when no reasonable view of the record could support his ruling.¹⁸ We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial judge's ruling and presume that all reasonable factual findings that could have been made against the losing party were made against that losing party.¹⁹

At a motion for new trial hearing, the judge alone determines the credibility of the witnesses.²⁰ Even if the testimony is not controverted or subject to cross-examination, the trial judge has discretion to disbelieve that testimony.²¹ In explaining the distinction between “uncontradicted testimony” such as Mr. Aguilera's and “undisputed facts” (such as those facts both parties agree to or that are subject to judicial notice), we have noted that “a defendant's mother may testify that the defendant was with her in Oshkosh on the night of the murder. Even though the State does not cross-examine the defendant's mother, the jury is not required to believe her uncontradicted testimony.” ²²

B. Rule 606(b) of the Texas Rules of Evidence

Early English common law allowed advocates to harass the jury after trial to elicit admissions of juror misconduct in support of a motion for new trial. ²³ In essence, after the jury trial, the jury was tried. In 1785, Lord Mansfield ended this practice by prohibiting judges from admitting testimony from jurors impeaching their verdict under the principle that “no one should be allowed to allege his own turpitude.” ²⁴

Texas initially followed Lord Mansfield's rule strictly,²⁵ but the Legislature adopted an exception to the common law juror-incompetency rule in 1905 that eventually resulted in “a far wider scope of inquiry into the jury's deliberation than any other state.” ²⁶ As a result, jury verdicts were frequently attacked by disgruntled jurors and reversed for “trivial misconduct.” ²⁷ The Texas Supreme Court took action in 1983 by adopting Texas Rule of Civil Evidence 606(b),²⁸ which, except for two narrow exceptions, prohibits post-verdict juror testimony to impeach a verdict.²⁹ Thus, a juror is not permitted to testify about any events or statements occurring during jury deliberations, any of the jurors' mental processes, or how an improper outside influence actually affected the jurors. ³⁰

The purpose of Rule 606(b) is to limit “the role jurors may play in attacking the validity of a verdict.” ³¹ This limitation serves four important policy interests: It encourages jurors to candidly discuss the case,³² protects jurors from post-trial harassment, ³³ promotes finality,³⁴ and prevents tampering and fraud. ³⁵ In sum, Rule 606(b) protects a good system that cannot be made perfect.³⁶ As Judge Learned Hand cautioned, without Rule 606(b), judges would become like mythological “Penelopes,³⁷ forever engaged in unraveling the webs they wove.” ³⁸ To this day, courts try to maintain the balance between the goal of “a trial by a jury free from bias or misconduct” and the need to prevent...