Majors v. State

• Decision Date: 14 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. 11S00-0004-CR-239.,11S00-0004-CR-239.
• Citation: 773 N.E.2d 231
• Parties: Orville Lynn MAJORS, Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

773 N.E.2d 231

Orville Lynn MAJORS, Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 11S00-0004-CR-239.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

August 14, 2002.

Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender of Indiana, Gregory L. Lewis, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.

Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, James B. Martin, Ellen H. Meilaender, Deputy Attorneys General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee. SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

A jury found nurse Orville Lynn Majors guilty of murdering six patients in his care. The trial court sentenced him to 360 years in prison.

In this direct appeal, Majors focuses on multiple claims of jury mismanagement and misconduct. We reject these claims and affirm the trial court.

Facts and Procedural History

Majors worked as a licensed practical nurse at Vermillion County Hospital. In March 1995, an investigation began into a series of suspicious patient deaths at the Hospital. The investigation revealed that Majors was present at the sudden and unexpected deaths of seven patients, and that no one else was present at all seven. Investigators concluded that Majors killed these patients by injecting them with potassium chloride. The State charged Majors with seven counts of murder.

The trial was moved from Vermillion County and tried in Brazil by Judge Ernest Yelton of the Clay Circuit Court, with jurors from Miami County. The sequestered jury heard testimony for approximately six weeks and deliberated more than three days. It found Majors guilty on six counts and deadlocked on the seventh, resulting in a mistrial on that count. The court sentenced Majors to consecutive terms of sixty years for each conviction, for an aggregate term of 360 years.

After the trial, based on the affidavit of one juror, Majors filed a motion to correct error, which the trial court denied.

I. The Judge's Caution to a Juror

Near the end of the trial, Judge Yelton became aware that a juror was making inappropriate facial expressions. He instructed a bailiff to privately caution the juror to be more circumspect. Neither the recipient nor other jurors whom she consulted knew who asked the judge to send this message. Neither party may have been aware of either the concern or the message. After the verdict the juror stated in an affidavit that the message frightened and upset her.

Majors says this was an improper and prejudicial ex parte communication, requiring reversal. We think the U.S. Supreme Court's analysis of such claims is helpful:

"[T]he mere occurrence of an ex parte conversation between a trial judge and a juror does not constitute a deprivation of any constitutional right. The defense has no constitutional right to be present at every interaction between a judge and a juror....

... [A] defendant has a due process right to be present at a proceeding `whenever his presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to the ful[l]ness of his opportunity to defend against the charge.... [T]he presence of a defendant is a condition of due process to the extent that a fair and just hearing would be thwarted by his absence, and to that extent only.'" United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 526, 105 S.Ct. 1482, 84 L.Ed.2d 486 (1985) (citations omitted). A presumption of harm arises only when ex parte communications with jurors relate to a substantive right of the defendant. Bruce v. State, 268 Ind. 180, 227, 375 N.E.2d 1042, 1068 (1978).

This relatively innocuous message in no way impaired Majors' ability to defend himself against the charges. Furthermore, "[c]ontrol and management of the jury is an area generally committed to the trial court's discretion." Norton v. State, 273 Ind. 635, 661, 408 N.E.2d 514, 531 (1980) (citation omitted). We find no error here.¹

II. The Jurors' After-Hours Activities

To warrant a new trial based on juror misconduct, the defendant must show the misconduct was gross and probably harmed him. Griffin v. State, 754 N.E.2d at 901 (citing Lopez v. State, 527 N.E.2d 1119 (Ind.1988)). This determination lies within the trial court's discretion. Id. Only when the decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances will this Court find an abuse of discretion.² Hall v. State, 760 N.E.2d 688, 689-90 (Ind.Ct.App.2002).

A. The Two Beers. Majors requests a new trial because one juror ordered and drank two beers that a bailiff delivered to the juror's hotel room on the evening after the third day of deliberations. (R. at 2848.) This juror saw bailiffs "running up and down the hall filling orders" at other jurors' doors and assumed that other jurors drank alcohol also.³ (R. at 2849.)

Majors cites Schultz v. Valle, 464 N.E.2d 354 (Ind.Ct.App.1984), where the Indiana Court of Appeals held a verdict per se invalid because jurors drank alcohol during deliberations. Schultz, however, presented quite a different scene. There, some jurors consumed as many as three beers each during an hour-and-a-half dinner break, then resumed deliberations. Id. at 355. Here, the jury had adjourned for the day and did not resume deliberations until 8:00 the next morning. (R. at 3237.)

While allowing jurors to consume alcohol during deliberations would certainly be ill-advised, the question is not whether alcohol touched any juror's lips during the entire time between the judge's charge to the jury and the jury's rendering of verdicts. Rather, the focus is whether the jury was free from the influence during actual deliberations. A full night passed after this juror drank her two beers, and Majors does not claim that she or any other juror showed any effects related to alcohol consumption when deliberations resumed the next morning. He has therefore not shown either gross misconduct or probable harm.

B. The Fishing Expeditions. Majors next claims that jurors were subtly influenced to favor the State due to their fraternization with law enforcement officers at two picnics hosted by the Clay County sheriff. When the trial began and the jury was sequestered for what looked to be a rather long haul, Judge Yelton told the jurors that they could request recreational activities. (R. at 3203, 3207.) During the second week of trial, they asked if they could go fishing some evening. (R. at 3209.)

A local podiatrist agreed to allow the use of his property, which was adjacent to that of Clay County's sheriff. (R. at 2856, 2859, 3209.) The sheriff was a veteran officer who was "well versed on appropriate juror exposure" and had no involvement in the Majors investigation or prosecution. (R. at 3210.) All the jurors along with the doctor, the sheriff and his wife and young son, several Indiana State Police officers, and two bailiffs participated in the outing, which was held the third week of trial. (R. at 2844, 2858, 2971.)

The officers and bailiffs transported the jurors to the picnic, provided security, and performed duties such as grilling food. (R. at 3211-12.) None of the officers at the cookout were involved with the investigation of Majors in any capacity. (R. at 3204, 3210, 3212.) The event was so well received that a similar picnic was held two weeks later.

One juror had disclosed during voir dire that her sixty-fifth birthday was approaching. Her birthday fell on the day of the first outing, and the judge arranged for delivery of a cake to honor the occasion. At the end of the evening, the sheriff's wife gave this juror a bottle or two of white zinfandel wine that may have been left over from the party supplies.

Majors offers no support for his speculation that the jurors would favor testifying police officers because they were friendly with their security detail. Moreover, sequestered jurors whose activities are confined in the interests of a fair trial are necessarily placed under the care and custody of a court's bailiff and, where the length of a trial or other logistics necessitate, additional personnel such as law enforcement officers. If we were to view any small kindnesses as currying favor on behalf of the State, jurors' freedom would be even more restricted, which could easily produce a resentment that would benefit neither party.

Although friendships may have developed between the security officers and the jurors here, nothing in the record indicates that Majors suffered prejudice as a result of the two outings or the modest birthday gift.⁴ The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the jury's verdict was not influenced by these events.

C. Comments About the Attorneys. Majors next claims the jury improperly discussed aspects of the trial prior to deliberations. He offers a juror affidavit indicating that jurors made a few isolated comments during trial about physical characteristics of both State and defense attorneys, and about the way a defense attorney questioned witnesses. (R. at 2852.) He does not claim that the trial judge was aware of these alleged comments. (See Appellant's Br. at 58-62.) This constitutes an attempt to impeach the verdict, impermissible under Ind. Evidence Rule 606(b).⁵

Conclusion. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by rejecting Majors' claims of juror misconduct.

III. The Request to Depose Jurors

Majors next asks that we remand his case and order depositions of the jurors, the alternates, and the bailiffs. He claims the right to explore further his allegations of juror misconduct by deposing jurors who spoke to the State after the trial but chose not to speak with defense counsel. He cites the principle that absent a showing of no legitimate defense interest or of a paramount State's interest, a criminal defendant has the right to depose State witnesses. Murphy v. State, 265 Ind. 116, 352 N.E.2d 479 (1976).

Juror depositions are a very different matter, however, from witness depositions. We recently emphasized the public interest in discouraging post-trial verdict impeachment via affidavit:

... [Post-verdict] juror affidavits could defeat the jury's

...