State v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 17 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 37906.,37906.
• Citation: 152 Idaho 764,274 P.3d 1279
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Respondent, v. Vance A. WATKINS, Defendant–Appellant.

152 Idaho 764

274 P.3d 1279

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Respondent,

v.Vance A. WATKINS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 37906.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

April 17, 2012.

Review Denied May 9, 2012.

Sara B. Thomas, State Appellate Public Defender; Erik R. Lehtinen, Chief, Appellate Unit, Boise, for appellant. Erik R. Lehtinen argued.

Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Kenneth K. Jorgensen, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Kenneth K. Jorgensen argued.

LANSING, Judge.

Vance A. Watkins appeals from his conviction for lewd conduct. His previous conviction for the same offense was vacated by the Idaho Supreme Court and the case was remanded for a new trial. During the second trial, a witness mentioned there had been a prior trial and appeal. Watkins asserts that the district court erred by declining to grant a mistrial after this disclosure.

I.BACKGROUND

In 2005, following a jury trial, Watkins was convicted of lewd conduct with a minor under sixteen, Idaho Code § 18–1508. That conviction was reversed and the case remanded for a new trial because important DNA evidence had been presented through inadmissible hearsay testimony. State v. Watkins, 148 Idaho 418, 224 P.3d 485 (2009). Prior to the new trial on remand, witnesses were cautioned not to mention that there had been a previous trial and appeal. During Watkins' new trial, the State called a police officer as its second witness. During cross-examination, the following exchange took place:

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. All right. Well, once again, referring back to an earlier time when you testified about this, do you remember talking about opening bags and then moving two pieces of paper around to find the condom?

THE WITNESS: In my transcript from the—well, can I say that because I was told I can't talk about the prior trial.

THE COURT: With regard to your prior testimony, do you recall making a different testimony than you are today?

THE WITNESS: I don't remember recalling. I read the transcript of the prior trial after the appeals court-so if that's what you're asking.

THE COURT: At this time we need to take up an issue outside the presence of the jury. If you would please take the jury back to the jury room.

After hearing argument from the parties regarding possible measures, including declaration of a mistrial, to remedy the officer's disclosure that there had been a prior trial and appeal, the district court took the issue under advisement and excused the jury for the day. The following morning, the district court declined to grant a mistrial, concluding that a curative instruction would effectively remedy the disclosure. The court stated: "In my view the jury could equally find that a verdict in the first case was unfavorable to the State just as it could find that it was unfavorable to the defendant." The court then instructed the jury: "You have heard testimony that there was a previous trial in this matter. You are not to speculate as to the result of that previous trial." The jury subsequently found Watkins to be guilty.

On appeal, Watkins contends the district court erred in refusing to declare a mistrial. He asserts that the witness's mention of the first trial and appeal amounted to a disclosure of Watkins' prior conviction, and that the disclosure violated his constitutional right to a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

II.ANALYSIS

Motions for a mistrial in criminal cases are governed by Idaho Criminal Rule 29.1, which authorizes such relief "when there occurs during the trial an error or legal defect in the proceedings, or conduct inside or outside the courtroom, which is prejudicial to the defendant and deprives the defendant of a fair trial." When we review a denial of a motion for a mistrial, the question on appeal is not whether the trial court reasonably exercised its discretion in light of circumstances existing when the mistrial motion was made. Instead, we examine whether the event that precipitated the motion constituted reversible error when viewed in the context of the full record. State v. Sandoval–Tena, 138 Idaho 908, 912, 71 P.3d 1055, 1059 (2003) ; State v. Norton, 151 Idaho 176, 192, 254 P.3d 77, 93 (Ct.App.2011) ; State v. Shepherd, 124 Idaho 54, 57, 855 P.2d 891, 894 (Ct.App.1993) ; State v. Urquhart, 105 Idaho 92, 95, 665 P.2d 1102, 1105 (Ct.App.1983). That is, the query is whether there has been reversible error. Our focus is upon the ultimate impact on the trial of the incident that triggered the mistrial motion. The trial court's refusal to declare a mistrial will be disturbed only if that event, viewed retrospectively, amounted to reversible error. Urquhart, 105 Idaho at 95, 665 P.2d at 1105. An error is harmless, not necessitating reversal, if the reviewing court is able to declare beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710–11 (1967) ; State v. Perry, 150 Idaho 209, 227, 245 P.3d 961, 979 (2010).

A. The Disclosures Did Not Ipso Facto Necessitate a Mistrial

Watkins argues that the disclosure of a prior trial and appeal is tantamount to telling the jury that Watkins had been found guilty by a previous jury. Idaho appellate courts have not previously considered the impact of such a disclosure. As Watkins points out, however, decisions from other jurisdictions have nearly universally concluded that the disclosure of a prior conviction necessitated a mistrial because the disclosure was severely prejudicial to the defendant. Some courts have held that such disclosure is cause for a mistrial ipso facto, while others have reached the conclusion after conducting a harmless error analysis. See United States v. Williams, 568 F.2d 464, 470–71 (5th Cir.1978) ; Salas v. People, 177 Colo. 264, 493 P.2d 1356, 1357 (1972) ; Bailey v. State, 521 A.2d 1069, 1076 (Del.1987) ; Jackson v. State, 545 So.2d 260, 263 (Fla.1989) ; State v. Lee, 346 So.2d 682, 684 (La.1977) ; Coffey v. State, 100 Md.App. 587, 642 A.2d 276, 285 (1994).

Here, we need not decide whether the disclosure of a prior conviction for the same offense would be cause for an automatic declaration of a mistrial because the police officer mentioned only a "prior trial" and "the appeals court," without revealing the result of Watkins' first trial or saying which party appealed. We are not persuaded that this is equivalent to the disclosure that a previous jury had found him guilty. Other courts addressing similar disclosures of a previous trial or appeal have concluded that the disclosure resulted in little or no prejudice. In People v. Boose, 85 Ill.App.3d 457, 40 Ill.Dec. 760, 406 N.E.2d 963, 964–66 (1980), the Appellate Court of Illinois concluded that a witness's "nebulous and ambiguous" references to the defendant's incarceration and participation in an appeal were harmless under the Chapman standard. The Delaware Supreme Court held that no mistrial was necessary after a witness mentioned a previous trial because "the jury could at most only speculate as to the outcome of [defendant]'s previous trial" and "[s]uch speculation, if indeed it even occurred, would not necessarily have led the jury to believe that the trial ended in [defendant]'s conviction." MacDonald v. State, 816 A.2d 750, 756 (Del.2003). Other courts have reached similar conclusions. Brooks v. State, 918 So.2d 181, 208 (Fla.2005) (holding the court did not err in refusing to grant a mistrial when the State referred to the previous trial without disclosing the result), partially overruled on other grounds by State v. Sturdivant, ––– So.3d –––– (Fla.2012) ; Hood v. State, 245 Ga.App. 391, 537 S.E.2d 788, 790 (2000) ( "The equally rational inference is a mistrial due to the inability to achieve a unanimous verdict."); Carroll v. State, 147 Ga.App. 332, 248 S.E.2d 702, 705 (1978) ("[E]ven if the use of the transcript indicated to the jurors that there had been a previous trial, it could just as easily have led them to the conclusion that the previous trial had resulted in a mistrial as that it had resulted in a conviction."); People v. Jones, 123 Ill.2d 387, 123 Ill.Dec. 944, 528 N.E.2d 648, 658 (1988) (holding jurors may have understood a witness's reference to "the last trial" to be a reference to an " earlier hearing," and that the brief reference was not prejudicial when the result was not disclosed); Brown v. Kentucky, 313 S.W.3d 577, 607 (Ky. 2010) ("Absent [an explicit disclosure that another jury found the defendant guilty], the fact that the jury may have been aware that Brown was being retried no more infringed upon his right to be presumed innocent than does the jury's awareness that the defendant was arrested, indicted, and put on trial."); State v. Williams, 445 So.2d 1171, 1177 (La.1984) (holding no reversible error occurred when "references to a prior trial did not identify the defendant in the prior trial, and did not refer to a conviction"); State v. Bridges, 854 A.2d 855, 858 (Me.2004) (holding "a curative instruction was adequate to protect against improper consideration of the reference to the first trial by the jury" when the result was not disclosed); State v. Endres, 741 S.W.2d 788, 791 (Mo.Ct.App.1987) (holding jury may not have "discern[ed] the difference between a prior hearing and a prior trial" and in any event the result was not disclosed); State v. Tate, 109 R.I. 586, 288 A.2d 494, 497 (1972) (holding the defendant was not prejudiced by reference to a previous trial absent a reference to the result); Harward v. Virginia, 5 Va.App. 468, 364 S.E.2d 511, 516 (1988) (holding a reference to a previous trial does not "warrant any inference that [defendant] had been previously convicted"). We agree that if jury speculation about the outcome of the previous trial occurred here despite the curative instruction against such speculation, it would not necessarily have led the jury to believe that Watkins had been convicted.

We thus conclude...