State v. Church
| Decision Date | 08 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | 22-0089 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOHNNY BLAHNIK CHURCH a/k/a DREW ALAN BLAHNIK, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Christopher L Bruns, Judge.
A criminal defendant appeals his convictions for second-degree murder, obstructing prosecution, and defacing a corpse. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Leon F. Spies of Spies &Pavelich, Iowa City, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Nicholas E. Siefert and Louis S Sloven, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.
Heard by Tabor, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
Johnny Blahnik Church appeals his convictions for second-degree murder, obstructing prosecution, and defacing a corpse. He raises a single issue: did the district court abuse its discretion in giving a verdict-urging instruction on day four of jury deliberations? We must decide whether that Allen charge was coercive under the totality of the circumstances.[1] Because the jury's notes to the court revealed open hostility toward a lone holdout juror, it was an abuse of discretion to give the instruction. We thus reverse the convictions and remand for a new trial.
The trial evidence is not critical to the issue on appeal. But it helps set the stage for the jury's questions to know that Church claimed he was justified in stabbing Christopher Bagley. The jury heard varying witness accounts on whether Bagley was armed during their confrontation. Armed or not, Bagley suffered at least thirteen stab wounds, including debilitating injuries to his neck, chest, and abdomen. The State also presented evidence that Church helped bury Bagley's body in an accomplice's yard. Then Church lied to investigators and a grand jury about what happened.
That grand jury indicted Church for first-degree murder, obstructing prosecution, and defacing a corpse. Church's 2021 trial started Friday, July 16 and lasted until the jury began deliberating at 4:06 p.m. on Monday, July 26.[2] On Wednesday, July 28, the jury started passing a series of notes to the court. The first came at 9:02 a.m., asking for "confirmation" of two specific lines from "the grand jury's testimony." Neither the attorneys nor the court was sure what transcript lines the jury was referring to, but all agreed to respond that they must rely on the exhibits and their recollection of the testimony.
Then at 2:17 p.m., the jury asked for guidance on two jury instructions on justification. The note read: "Can instruction 45 &46 have to cover the entire incident (physical confrontation)," and then in separate handwriting the note continued, "or can it cease when we believe that the imminent danger is no longer a threat." Rather than providing a supplemental instruction, the court told the jury to re-read the original instructions.[3] The jury deliberated for about seven hours that day.
Next morning, Thursday, July 29, at 10:06 a.m., the jury sent another note: [4] Based on that communication, the court believed that the jury was deadlocked. But it responded: "As previously instructed, you are required to apply the law set forth in the instructions already provided to you."
At 11:15 a.m. that same day, the court informed the attorneys that the jury told the court attendant that it was deadlocked. After being instructed to only communicate with the court in writing, the foreperson sent this note:
We have a juror that is refusing to follow certain rules set forth by you. We took a vote to whether or not we felt this person was deliberately not following a rule. The vote was 11 to 1. We have gone over this rule numerous times with this juror. The response has been "I don't care, I'm not changing my opinion." Signed, Foreperson.
The court proposed asking the jury if further deliberations would be fruitful. The State requested an Allen charge. Defense counsel objected to the State's request, reasoning:
The court denied the State's request, finding an Allen charge inappropriate under the circumstances. The court explained that it did not have "any hope whatsoever that [an Allen charge] would cause the jury to reach a jury verdict that is consistent with the Defendant's constitutional rights because the jury has basically told me we have a single holdout and we cannot convince that holdout." Instead, the court wrote back: "Do you believe further deliberations would be fruitful?"
At 11:37 a.m., the jury responded:
The State renewed its request for an Allen charge. Again, Church's attorney objected. He emphasized the likelihood of coercion:
[I]t would be silly to believe that a verdict-urging instruction at this point would be anything other than coercive. The jury foreperson has communicated to you that there is one person who is adamant about his or her position in this case and for you to give a verdicturging instruction now would focus directly on that juror and would not be anything other than signaling to that single juror that his or her position in the present state of deliberations is anything other than incorrect or erroneous. So I think given what you already know, what we already know, that a verdict-urging instruction would be coercive, it would deny the Defendant the right to a fair and impartial jury and in violation of his rights to due process under both the state and federal constitutions.
After reviewing case law, the court noted it was still "not entirely convinced that an Allen charge is appropriate here." But it decided to give the instruction in the interest of judicial economy:
[I]f I give an Allen charge and then we don't get a verdict and we still have a hung jury, we have a hung jury. If I give an Allen charge and we get a verdict, either I or the Appellate Court, if I shouldn't have given the Allen charge, can take the verdict away or if it was appropriate to give the charge, leave the verdict standing and we don't have to try the case again.
The court gave the jury the Allen charge at 12:08 p.m. At 3:39 p.m. the jury informed the court it had reached a verdict. These three-and-a-half hours of deliberations included a lunch break.
The jury found Church guilty of the lesser-included offense of second-degree murder, as well as obstructing prosecution, and defacing a corpse. The district court then polled the jurors, asking each one: "Is this your verdict?" In open court, each juror answered in the affirmative. The court instructed members of the media attending the murder trial to turn off recording equipment while polling occurred so the jurors' names would not be broadcast.
Church moved for a new trial, arguing the court abused its discretion in giving the Allen charge. The court denied the motion. Church now appeals.
Church reprises his argument that the court should not have given the Allen charge. We review the district court's decision to give a verdict-urging instruction for an abuse of discretion.[5] State v. Davis, 975 N.W.2d 1, 8 (Iowa 2022). Indeed, district courts possess wide latitude to deliver a verdict-urging instruction in the face of jury deadlock. State v. Campbell, 294 N.W.2d 803, 808-09 (Iowa 1980). But such an instruction must not coerce a verdict. Id. at 808. "The ultimate test is whether the instruction improperly coerced or helped coerce a verdict or merely initiated a new train of real deliberation which terminated the disagreement." [6] Id.
In determining the coercive effect of an Allen charge, our appellate courts consider each case "on its own circumstances." Davis, 975 N.W.2d at 18 (quoting Campbell, 294 N.W.2d at 808-09). We will reverse when the accused demonstrates prejudice arising from those circumstances. Id. The customary factors in the coercion analysis include the content of the instruction, the timing of deliberations, and responses from jurors when polled about their verdict. Id. But we also weigh other factors that may suggest a coercive effect, such as the court's inquiry into or knowledge of the jury's numerical division. See Piper, 663 N.W.2d at 912.
Starting with factor one, the instruction's content. After the foreperson informed the court that further deliberations "would NOT be fruitful" because one juror was recalcitrant, the court provided this supplemental instruction:
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