Knox v. State

• Decision Date: 07 October 2011
• Docket Number: No. 685,2010.,685
• Citation: 29 A.3d 217
• Parties: Dechanta KNOX, Defendant Below, Appellant,v.STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

29 A.3d 217

Dechanta KNOX, Defendant Below, Appellant,

v.STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

No. 685

2010.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: Sept. 14, 2011.Decided: Oct. 07, 2011.

Court Below: Superior Court of the State of Delaware, in and for New Castle County, Cr. ID No. 0807040237.Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REVERSED and REMANDED.Nicole M. Walker (argued) of the Office of the Public Defender, for appellant.Kevin M. Carroll (argued) and Gregory E. Smith of the Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware for appellee.Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and BERGER, Justices.STEELE, Chief Justice:

Police arrested Dechanta Knox on August 5, 2008 and charged her with three counts of issuing a bad check greater than $1,000. After a jury convicted Knox of all offenses, the trial judge learned that Juror No. 8 was a victim in a pending criminal trial being prosecuted by the same Deputy Attorney General. Without examining the juror in court, the trial judge denied Knox's motion for a new trial. When a juror serving on a criminal trial is an alleged victim of a crime and is contemporaneously represented by the Attorney General's office in the prosecution of the alleged perpetrator of the crime against the juror “victim,” a mere inquiry by deposition into whether the jury knew the prosecutor or anyone in his office insufficiently probes the ability of that “juror/victim” to render a fair and objective verdict as a matter of law. Therefore, we reverse and remand.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On September 2, 2008, a grand jury indicted Dechanta Knox on three counts of issuing a bad check greater than $1,000. Jury selection for the trial began on March 17, 2009. During voir dire, the trial judge directed the following question to the potential jurors: “The State is represented by Kevin M. Carroll, a Deputy Attorney General, and the defendant is represented by Raymond D. Armstrong. Do you know the attorneys in this case or any other attorney or employee in the office of the Attorney General or the defense counsel?” None of the potential jurors, including Juror No. 8, responded positively.

The trial judge did not ask whether any of the venire members were victims of a crime, and the parties did not uncover Juror No. 8's status as an alleged victim in a pending criminal trial during voir dire. As a result, the judge seated Juror No. 8. On March 18, 2009 the jury convicted Knox of all three charges. Five days after Knox's convictions, Deputy Attorney General Carroll spoke with Juror No. 8 to discuss the juror's pending criminal trial. When they met face to face on March 25, 2009, Carroll realized that the victim had been one of the jurors in Knox. Carroll immediately notified the judge of his connection with the juror and withdrew from the pending case.

Further investigation revealed that Nickolas Dawkins–McMillian robbed Juror No. 8 in 2008. Soon after the incident, the Department of Justice Victim Services Unit sent Juror No. 8 a letter, and the Department assigned Deputy Attorney General Kevin Carroll to the case. After case review, the court scheduled the State v. Dawkins–McMillian trial for March 31, 2009—only 14 days after the Knox trial.

On April 6, 2009, Knox filed a motion for a new trial on the ground that Juror No. 8 was a victim in a pending case being prosecuted by the same Deputy Attorney General who prosecuted her. Rather than questioning the juror herself, the trial judge ordered both defense counsel and the State to take Juror No. 8's deposition. The deposition covered whether Juror No. 8 knew the attorney general or anyone in his office but not whether he was influenced by his experience as a victim of a crime. For reasons unclear in the record, one-and-a-half years after the conviction, the trial judge denied Knox's motion for a new trial. Knox appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

Knox contends that the trial judge erred by failing to grant a motion for a new trial after discovering that Juror No. 8 was a victim in a pending criminal case and by failing to conduct a sufficient post trial inquiry. The integrity of the judicial process can be adversely affected when a juror seated on a criminal case is on notice and therefore conscious that the Attorney General's Office will represent his interests in a pending trial. ¹ Here, we are concerned with juror bias and whether the trial judge performed a sufficient inquiry during voir dire and after the trial to determine the impartiality and fairness of Juror No. 8.

A. As a victim in a pending criminal case, Juror No. 8 was biased.

Customarily we would review a trial judge's determination that a juror can fairly and objectively render a verdict for abuse of discretion. Trial judges have discretion to make credibility determinations, but “the exercise of this discretion is limited by the essential demands of fairness.” ² When the trial judge fails to conduct a sufficient inquiry into juror bias, the appellate court may be required to evaluate independently the fairness and impartiality of the juror. In this case, judicial inquiry for juror bias was limited to a deposition taken outside the presence of the trial judge. Therefore, the trial judge eschewed the opportunity to evaluate the juror's demeanor and credibility, a crucial element in the determination of impartiality.³ To our knowledge, a decision to inquire into juror bias solely by deposition is without precedent and should not happen again. In effect, the unique circumstances of this case suggest that our inquiry here can be analogized to summary judgment scrutiny, and therefore we review the trial judge's determination of the juror's objectivity de novo.

Knox argues that Juror No. 8's bias originated from his experience as an alleged robbery victim. When a victim seeks justice for the crimes committed against him, the victim's interests align with the Attorney General's interests. The victim has a personal appreciation for the role of prosecutors in bringing justice to criminals. The Department of Justice's focus on pursuing cases for “victims” through “victims' services” reinforces the identification of “victims” with the Attorney General. It would be irrational to ignore the influence of the pending joint endeavor on the juror's objectivity in the Knox trial. Even in factually unrelated cases, the victim's experience with the Department of Justice, whether good or bad, previous or ongoing, will affect the victim's perspective. In these situations, courts must be wary of the victim's ability to be fair and impartial in the role of a juror.

Other courts have expressed concern regarding a victim's bias in favor of the prosecution while serving on a jury. This case bears a striking similarity to the situation analyzed in Mobley v. Florida.⁴ In Mobley, a juror denied that he had been a victim of a crime during voir dire but later remembered and notified the judge during trial. On appeal, the Florida District Court of Appeal held that defense counsel's motion to strike the juror from the panel and substitute an alternate should have been granted.⁵ Although the opinion did not explicitly discuss why having been a victim biased the juror, we can readily infer that the appellate court found sufficient bias to reverse the trial judge's denial of defense counsel's motion to strike the juror.

On the other hand, Knox can be distinguished from cases where a juror was merely a potential witness for the prosecution. In Commonwealth v. Frye,⁶ a juror was scheduled to testify as Pennsylvania's sole eyewitness in a different criminal case scheduled to begin the next day. The defendant claimed that a situational relationship between the juror and the prosecutor's office could be inferred from appearing as a prosecution witness, but the court held that the defendant did not present particularized evidence of juror bias.⁷ Unlike a witness who is indifferent to the resolution of a case and has no formal relationship with the prosecution, a victim is emotionally invested in the outcome and personally dependent on the attorney general to bring the person the victim perceives to be the wrongdoer to justice. Therefore, Knox presents a case where the question of a juror's objectivity poses a serious issue.

An added layer of complexity involves Juror No. 8's status as a victim in a pending criminal case. Because the victim inevitably forms an impression, either positive or negative, about the attorney general's handling of his case, that awareness clouds the victim's judgment as a fair and impartial juror. This problem intensifies when the Deputy Attorney General is the same in both cases. As a victim of a robbery in a pending case, Juror No. 8 was conscious that the Attorney General's Office would represent him and present evidence intended to convict a perpetrator in another case. The fact that Juror No. 8's case would go to trial only 14 days after Knox suggests an inference that the pending trial would be at the forefront of the juror's mind.

In violent crime cases, trial judges commonly ask venire members whether they or a family member have ever been a victim of a violent crime. ⁸ The logic supporting this practice is based on a belief that the victims would be unable to separate their personal experiences with violent crime when adjudicating the current case. A victim in a pending robbery trial may have a similar tendency when adjudicating a case about writing bad checks. Both crimes involve the intent to permanently deprive another of property. Although one is theft by force and the other is theft by deception, they both constitute malum prohibitum. Furthermore, this policy rests not only on the similarity of the crimes but also on the victim's personal experience with the criminal justice system and the prosecution. Whether the victim believes that justice would be performed or that the defendant might escape punishment in his case, can impact the victim's ability to serve as an...