Criminal
Jul. 20, 2002
Juror Removal Annuls Conviction
SAN FRANCISCO - A state appellate court reversed a murder conviction Thursday, saying San Francisco Superior Court Judge Kevin Ryan erroneously kicked a problem juror off the case.
The decision was a close one, the court said, and it turned on a juror misconduct rule only recently articulated. But Ryan, the likely next U.S. attorney for Northern California, was mistaken, the court said, because the record shows no "demonstrable reality" of juror misconduct.
The court recognized that California law poses a "terrible quandary" for judges facing juror misconduct. They are caught between the duty to investigate misconduct and the risk of violating the secrecy of deliberations, the court said.
"The only advice we can offer judges on the firing line is to remind them of what we think the cases teach," Justice Patricia K. Sepulveda wrote.
"The 'demonstrable reality' modification of the abuse of discretion standard - derived from the importance American law attaches to free, unfettered deliberations in the jury room.- means reviewing courts are required to look at the record made in the trial court with less deference and greater scrutiny than they would normally accord such rulings."
She was joined by justices Laurence D. Kay and Maria Rivera. People v. Alas, A092852.
The decision reverses the second-degree murder conviction of Daniel Alas, who hit another man over the head with a metal Club anti-theft device during an argument outside a strip club in North Beach.
During deliberations, one emotional juror said he couldn't follow the instructions, according to several other jurors. At one point he asked, "One man's life has been ruined; how can we ruin another man's life?"
Under Ryan's questioning, the juror asked to be removed from the case and made several inconsistent statements about the deliberations. At one point he said, "I will go with what my heart feels."
Ryan removed the juror, saying that he couldn't perform his duties as required by law. He listed several reasons: the juror's language problems, his overly emotional state, his consideration of penalty and punishment, and his desire to avoid blame for any decision.
If Ryan's decision were reviewed under the traditional abuse of discretion standard, the appellate court said, the conviction might have stood.
But recent state Supreme Court decisions impose a more stringent standard of review, recently articulated in People v. Cleveland, 25 Cal.4th 466 (2001) and People v. Williams, 25 Cal.4th 441 (2001). The high court in those cases counseled caution when removing jurors, saying the trial court removing a juror must find a "demonstrable reality" that a juror is unable to perform his duties.
That's not the case here, the court said. Ambiguities in the juror's statements were never resolved, and his difficulties in deliberating had benign explanations that don't amount to misconduct. Ryan should not have presumed the worst, the justices said.
The opinion doesn't break any new ground, but it further explains the rule governing the removal of problem jurors, said Hilda Scheib, the San Francisco solo who represented Alas on appeal.
The court also said that double jeopardy would not bar a retrial of Alas. Lawyers at the state attorney general's office did not return phone calls late Thursday.
Tyler Cunningham
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