State v. Mann

• Decision Date: 11 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 26,582.,26,582.
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. William Mark MANN, Defendant-Petitioner.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

39 P.3d 124

131 N.M. 459

2002 NMSC 1

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. William Mark MANN, Defendant-Petitioner.

No. 26,582.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

January 11, 2002.

Billy R. Blackburn, John R. Robbenhaar, Albuquerque, NM, for Petitioner.

Patricia A. Madrid, Attorney General, Arthur W. Pepin, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Respondent.

OPINION

SERNA, Chief Justice.

{1} Defendant William Mark Mann appeals his conviction for intentional child abuse resulting in death. The Court of Appeals affirmed Defendant's conviction. State v. Mann, 2000-NMCA-088, 129 N.M. 600, 11 P.3d 564, cert. granted, 129 N.M. 599, 11 P.3d 563 (2000). Defendant argues that he is entitled to a new trial based on juror misconduct during deliberations. We affirm Defendant's conviction.

I. Facts and Background

A. The Trial

{2} The victim was the six-year-old son of Defendant and Rita Yancher. Yancher had primary custody of the victim, and the victim usually spent every other weekend with Defendant and Patricia St. Jeor Mann, at the time, Defendant's girlfriend. On August 29, 1996, the victim was present at Defendant's house. At about 11:00 p.m., Defendant and Yancher argued during a telephone conversation regarding the victim staying with him through Saturday as well as late child support payments. At approximately 1 a.m., on August 30th, St. Jeor awoke and saw Defendant going to the victim's room to take him to the bathroom. She heard a noise from the victim, followed by a loud crash and a scream. She ran to the bathroom and saw the victim, apparently having a seizure, on the floor with Defendant cushioning his head. St. Jeor called 911 and reported that the victim was injured. She returned to the bathroom and saw the victim on his back with a screwdriver protruding from his chest. St. Jeor testified that the victim was trying to move himself and Defendant was cupping the screwdriver. St. Jeor, a nurse, attempted to attend the victim, but Defendant punched her in the eye, grabbed her by her hair and by the back of the neck and "slammed" her through the door into the opposite wall. She again called 911, telling them that Defendant attacked her.

{3} Paramedics arrived and saw St Jeor exit the house; she was bleeding from her face and had a swollen eye. A paramedic testified that Defendant growled, refused to let him treat the victim, and told him to leave the house. Upon the arrival of sheriff's deputies, Defendant was separated from the victim, and the victim was taken to the hospital. Medical personnel were unable to revive the child. The paramedics and medical personnel testified that they did not disturb the screwdriver from his chest while performing CPR and other medical treatment.

{4} The victim's cause of death was the stab wound in his chest. Almost the entire screwdriver's blade, approximately four inches, was embedded in his chest; an autopsy revealed that the screwdriver was wedged between the sternum and the second and third ribs. The victim had two wounds in his chest but only one entry wound, indicating that the screwdriver was withdrawn several inches but not fully removed before it was thrust into his chest a second time. A pathologist testified that there was blood in both the right and left chest cavities, indicating that the wounds occurred prior to the victim's death. The pathologist testified that "there [were] two trajectories that emanate from one entrance hole, one stab wound with two trajectories." He concluded that the victim's wounds were "stabbing paths that were created by a stab into the right chest, a partial withdrawal and then a stab into the left chest." The pathologist testified that the screwdriver could not simply move over into the left chest because the vertebral column protrudes into the cavity; thus, the screwdriver had to be withdrawn until it was above the range of the column and then reintroduced. He also testified that cardiopulmonary resuscitation compressions to the chest, as well as other medical interventions performed on the victim, could not have caused the second wound path. There were no other injuries on the front of the victim's head, face, hands, or elbows.

{5} Defendant was also charged with child abuse for a head injury the victim suffered in 1994. The State's pathologist testified regarding the victim's earlier skull fracture. He concluded that the brain injuries he observed were inconsistent with a simple fall from a bar stool as described by Defendant.

{6} Defendant testified that he got up around 1 a.m. and realized that he had not taken the victim to the bathroom, a routine occurrence. He woke up the victim and walked him into the bathroom. Defendant testified that he was standing in the bathroom doorway when he saw the victim trip on a rug, put out his arms and knock the items on the hamper, and then fall to the floor. Defendant testified that he turned the victim over and saw the screwdriver. Defendant said he grabbed the screwdriver to prevent the victim from pulling it out in order to minimize the injuries. Defendant testified that St. Jeor came back in and that he thought that she would try to move him, so he pushed her from him and told her to get away. He testified that he did not remember hurting her.

{7} Defendant presented the testimony of Dr. Alan Watts, a physicist, regarding the possibility of the victim impaling himself on the screwdriver consistent with Defendant's explanation of events. He performed several calculations in the courtroom relating to the angle at which the screwdriver may have landed and the amount of force which the victim's body would have exerted upon it on impact, as well as videotaped and live demonstrations for the jury. The videotape consisted of Dr. Watts performing experiments in which he dropped a metal rod, which simulated the victim's body, and a screwdriver onto the concrete floor of his garage. Dr. Watts analogized how a screwdriver might bounce if it hits a solid object with the randomness of throwing dice. Dr. Watts testified that the occurrence of an impalement such as that described by Defendant has "a relatively small overall probability." He stated that, based on the "probability aspects of this," it would be a "freakish accident." Dr. Watts said that "[i]t is a probability calculation" and he offered an example for comparison to "Monte Carlo [codes] because basically you roll the dice."

{8} The State did not present rebuttal testimony, but instead cross-examined Defendant's expert. Dr. Watts conceded that he was unable to explain from his calculations how the second wound path occurred, stating that he had "no way of calculating how the second path could have been caused on the basis of physics." The prosecutor asked if Dr. Watts could calculate "the probability of [Defendant's] explanation of the stab wound." Dr. Watts testified that he did not calculate the probability of impaling oneself on a screwdriver because "the whole issue that [he] was asked to address was can this happen, and the answer is, yes, it can." He said that the probability would be "finite," but "never zero." Dr. Watts testified that if he "were to run every option possible, [he'd] come to the conclusion that on average you won't stab yourself by falling on a screwdriver, but there is nevertheless a finite possibility it can happen."

{9} A jury convicted Defendant of child abuse resulting in death and second degree murder arising from the death of the victim. The jury also convicted Defendant of aggravated assault of a household member, St. Jeor. The jury deadlocked on the child abuse charge stemming from the victim's 1994 head injury.

B. The Jurors' Statements

{10} Defendant filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that the verdict was tainted by juror misconduct. Defense counsel interviewed several jurors and was told that Juror 7 presented probability calculations to the other members of the jury regarding the chances of a child and a screwdriver falling in such a manner as to result in impalement. Defendant identified several jurors who he believed had information regarding Juror 7.

{11} The trial court decided to conduct in camera interviews on the record with members of the jury to determine if an evidentiary hearing was necessary because the trial court was concerned with the jurors' privacy after videotape of the jury had appeared on television during the trial. The court gave Defendant the opportunity to name the jurors whom the court should question and gave both Defendant and the State the opportunity to posit any additional question to be asked. Defendant did not request that the trial court interview all members of the jury. The Court interviewed Jurors 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10.

{12} Juror 9 said that Juror 7 wrote "some calculations" on a board in the jury room, and said,

But, see, I kind of viewed that more as here is a guy that knows numbers, knows mathematics, who knows probabilities. I viewed it as his life experience. You know, much in the same way that relating back to the '94 head injury ... where the one juror ... brought in his life experience. He didn't bring in something, but in effect he did bring in something. He brought in the fact that he had a kid fall out of a tree and had a bad head injury.... [W]e had nurses in there, and the nurses brought in their life experience...."

{13} Juror 4 noted that Juror 7 "didn't say he did any experiments at home" and that "[h]e didn't bring papers" into the jury room, but used the easel in the room. Juror 4 recounted that Juror 7 said, "`Let's take Dr. Watts' figures.' And you might fly this by that — being an engineer and probably half-way [physicist], he said using his figures, it can't come out the way he said it did." Juror 10 stated that Juror 7 had some "figures that he had thought about and it was explaining his point of view on the testimony of Dr. Watts." Juror 6 stated that "I feel that the particular juror that — the engineer juror,...