Hatfield v. State

183 N.E.2d 198, 243 Ind. 279, 1962 Ind. LEXIS 159
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJune 18, 1962
Docket29,982
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 183 N.E.2d 198 (Hatfield v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hatfield v. State, 183 N.E.2d 198, 243 Ind. 279, 1962 Ind. LEXIS 159 (Ind. 1962).

Opinions

Landis, J.

— Appellant was indicted for the first degree murder of his wife, and after a trial by jury was convicted as charged, and sentenced to death. He appeals from the judgment and has assigned as error the overruling of his motion for new trial.

Appellant’s first contention is that one of the jurors, one Glenn Monk, was guilty of misconduct in that each day of the trial he had been taking on an average five pills or capsules of certain tranquilizing drugs known as placidyl, phenobarbital, and belladonna, to relieve his mental tension and stress and induce sleep, that said juror during the course of the trial and for some four years prior thereto had been under the care of a psychiatrist and physicians for acute mental strain and tension, all of which was unknown to appellant and his attorney, and which allegedly interfered with the discharge of such juror’s duties and allegedly deprived appellant of a fair trial.

Appellant further alleges that, on the voir dire examination of the jurors the said Glenn Monk was asked by appellant’s attorney whether he knew of any reason why he could not serve as a fair and impartial juror, to which he replied he did not, when the contrary was true in view of his said mental strain and taking of drugs as aforesaid.

In support of his motion for new trial raising this question, appellant filed affidavits of his attorneys, Robert Hepler and Charles Hughes, and a layman and a physician who answered a hypothetical question as to the effect of tranquilizers and barbiturates upon [281]*281individuals. The State (appellee) filed counter affidavits of three physicians, one layman, the court bailiff, and the juror, Monk. At the hearing on the motion for new trial two additional laymen testified for the appellant. Thereafter such motion for new trial was overruled:

Appellant argues that the affidavits and testimony submitted on his motion for new trial were to the effect that the juror Monk for three years prior to the trial had a chronic nervous condition characterized as anxiety reaction and depression; that he had been under the care of medical doctors and a psychiatrist who had prescribed tranquilizers, phenobarbital, belladonna, and various sedative compounds, and approximately three months prior to the trial had placed himself, upon the recommendation of his psychiatrist, in a private sanitorium in Florida. A medical doctor, who apparently had not examined the juror Monk, stated that such drugs in the usual doses would not be expected to have an adverse effect on a person’s reasoning or judgment, but that an increased dosage might do so.

However, in opposition to the motion for new trial, two medical doctors (Dr. Galen Miller, the coroner, and Dr. John Keating) gave evidence as to their treatment of the juror Monk professionally. Dr. Miller saw the juror before and during the trial, and Dr. Keating saw him prior to trial and soon afterward. Both doctors had prescribed the drugs for Monk and stated he was rational and his mental processes were not clouded. Dr. Miller stated that in his opinion the drugs did not affect his mental process, and Dr. Keating discussed the question of jury service with Monk before the trial. He advised Monk to respond to duty and that there was no reason he [282]*282shouldn’t serve on the jury; he further stated Monk, in his opinion, had normal comprehension and judgment during the trial.

Appellant and appellee offered conflicting evidence of laymen as to the juror’s taking of pills on other occasions than the trial, and as to whether the juror on those occasions was coherent or incoherent and rambling in conversation.

It is of course fundamental to our system of jurisprudence and guaranteed by our federal and state constitutions that an accused in a criminal case is entitled to a trial by jury. This necessarily contemplates a fair and impartial trial before a panel of competent jurors.

It appears uncontradicted that at the time of trial neither appellant nor his counsel had any knowledge that the juror Monk had a nervous condition that he was taking tranquilizing drugs under the direction of a psychiatrist and physician. Appellant’s counsel therefore could not be expected or required on the voir dire examination to ask of the juror Monk or the other 80 prospective jurors who were examined in this cause, specific questions about their health and physical condition when he had no reason to believe such questions pertinent. The question asked all the prospective jurors by appellant’s counsel, “Do you know of any reason why you could not sit on this jury as a fair and impartial juror and render a decision in this cause?” to which all such jurors including Monk replied in the negative, should, we believe in this case, be considered a sufficient interrogation of the jurors in this respect.

We proceed now to a consideration of the question of whether appellant was deprived of a fair trial by the alleged misconduct of the juror who failed to [283]*283divulge on the examination the facts of his nervous condition and his taking of tranquilizing drugs under the direction of physicians.

Appellant has cited the Indiana cases of Davis v. The State (1871), 35 Ind. 496, 9 Am. Rep. 760, Brown v. The State (1894), 137 Ind. 240, 36 N. E. 1108, 45 Am. St. Rep. 180, and Cheek v. The State (1871), 35 Ind. 492, in support of his position.

The Davis case was a first degree murder case in which the bailiff in charge of the jury went with two of the jurors to a saloon, where they had at least “ . . . ‘a drink of brandy, ginger wine, nutmeg and sugar/ . . .” The amount of liquor consumed is not indicated, nor does it appear where the other jurors were at the time. This all occurred after the jury had been instructed and had received the case to deliberate on the verdict. Although it was not shown what effect the separation and drinking had on deliberation, it was held such misbehavior was sufficient to set aside the verdict, and the judgment was reversed.

The Cheek case was one in which two of the jurors took notes on the evidence over appellant’s objection and after the court told them not to do so, and was held to be misconduct.

In the Brown case one juror became intoxicated for two hours after the jury was separated for the day. The juror resumed his seat the next day, and the Court on appeal held that while drinking alcoholic beverages during a recess of the court might not be such misconduct as to vitiate the verdict, nevertheless where a juror drinks to such a point as to become intoxicated, such conduct renders the verdict invalid. The Court stated that it need not determine how long the juror remained intoxicated nor to what extent his mental processes were beclouded, but that [284]*284upon proof of intoxication, in order to be safe, it must reverse.

Appellant has also cited State v. Murphy (1960), 56 Wn. 2d 761, 355 P. 2d 323, wherein it appears, that a medical trusty at the jail gave defendant tranquilizers before he took the stand, and as a resúlt he appeared cool, lackadaisical and indifférent throughout. This, it was claimed, helped convince the jury they should impose a death penalty. The Court held this to be prejudicial and to warrant a reversal.

We do not believe the factual situations in the foregoing cases relied upon by appellant, are analogous to the case at bar.

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315 N.E.2d 351 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1974)
Zink v. State
236 N.E.2d 589 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1968)
State v. Hatfield
236 N.E.2d 596 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1968)
Hatfield v. State
183 N.E.2d 198 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1962)

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Bluebook (online)
183 N.E.2d 198, 243 Ind. 279, 1962 Ind. LEXIS 159, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hatfield-v-state-ind-1962.