Com. v. Webster
Decision Date | 23 February 1984 |
Citation | 391 Mass. 271,461 N.E.2d 1175 |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Steven WEBSTER. |
Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Daniel E. Callahan, Lynn, for defendant.
Michael J. Traft, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and O'CONNOR, JJ.
The circumstances of the trial judge's interrogation of an individual juror concerning "some problems" she was having during jury deliberations require us to reverse the defendant's convictions of aggravated rape, rape, kidnapping, and assault and battery. We allowed the defendant's application for direct appellate review.
On June 16, 1982, the judge charged the jury, two alternate jurors were selected, the jury retired at 3:22 P.M., and the judge left the bench. Some time later, before 4 P.M., in a way and at a time not shown on the record, the judge received information that caused him, on his own motion, to bring the jury back into the courtroom. The judge then called one juror to the bench, where a bench conference was held with the prosecutor and defense counsel present. We shall assume that the jury did not hear what was said. It is apparent, however, that the remaining jurors (and presumably the two alternates) saw what went on at the bench.
We set forth the colloquy that followed:
(Juror excused.)
On the following trial day--there was an intervening holiday in Suffolk County--the "problem" juror telephoned that she was sick. She did not appear. The defendant moved for a mistrial on the ground that the judge had interfered with the jury's deliberations through intimidation of the juror. He also moved that an inquiry be made concerning the reason for the juror's absence. The judge denied the motion, stating that in his opinion "that conversation with that juror the other evening was totally warranted by what the juror indicated to me." The judge then made a further comment that gives some indication of the likely effect of the bench conference on the other jurors. The judge said to defense counsel:
The judge then ordered that one of the two alternates be selected. The jury, charged to begin deliberations anew, retired at 10:35 A.M. and returned with guilty verdicts at 3:22 P.M.
We need not consider whether the judge erred in substituting an alternate juror without further inquiry and a hearing on the question of replacing the absent juror (see Commonwealth v. Haywood, 377 Mass. 755, 769-770, 388 N.E.2d 648 [1979] ), because the judge should have declared a mistrial on the defendant's motion following the bench conference with the "problem" juror. In Commonwealth v. Hebert, 379 Mass. 752, 755, 400 N.E.2d 851 (1980), we said that "any questioning of a juror must be neutral and not coercive or otherwise calculated to affect the juror's judgment." Our law does not permit inquiry into "the subjective mental processes of jurors, such as the reasons for their decisions." Commonwealth v. Fidler, 377 Mass. 192, 198, 385 N.E.2d 513 (1979). The jury heard conflicting stories. The juror who had "problems" inferentially had taken a position in the jury room that, for some reason, led someone to send word from the jury room and in turn led the judge to bring the jury into the courtroom. The judge improperly told the juror that she had "a serious and profound mental block about considering the evidence," and implied that she may have violated her oath as a juror. See Jackson v. United States, 368...
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