Pena-Rodriguez v. People

2015 CO 31, 350 P.3d 287, 2015 WL 2394107

• Court: Supreme Court of Colorado
• Decided: May 18, 2015
• Docket: Supreme Court Case 13SC9
• Status: Published

Opinions

CHIEF JUSTICE RICE

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

T1 This case involves the interplay between two fundamental tenets of the justice system: protecting the secrecy of jury deliberations and ensuring a defendant's constitutional right to an impartial jury. After entry of a guilty verdict, defense counsel obtained juror affidavits suggesting that one of the Jurors exhibited racial bias against the defendant during deliberations. The trial court refused to consider these affidavits, finding that Colorado Rule of Evidence ("CRE") 606(b) barred their admission, and the court of appeals affirmed. People v. Pena-Rodriguez, 2012 COA 193, ¶ 3, 2012 WL 5457362, — P.3d —. We granted certiorari to consider whether CRE 606(b) applies to such affidavits and, if so, whether the Sixth Amendment nevertheless requires their admission.¹

12 We hold that the affidavits regarding the juror's biased statements fall within the broad sweep of CRE 606(b) and that they do not satisfy the rule's "extraneous prejudicial information" exception. We further hold that the trial court's application of CRE 606(b) did not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Facts and Procedural History

T3 In May 2007, a man made sexual advances toward two teenage girls in the bathroom of the horse-racing facility where Petitioner Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez worked. Shortly thereafter, the girls identified Petitioner as the assailant during a one-on-one showup. The People subsequently charged Petitioner with one count of sexual assault on a child-victim less than fifteen; one count of unlawful sexual contact-no consent; and two counts of harassment-strike, shove, or kick. After a preliminary hearing, the court bound over the first count as attempted sexual assault on a child-victim less than fifteen.²

14 At the start of a three-day trial, the jury venire received a written questionnaire, which inquired, "Is there anything about you that you feel would make it difficult for you to be a fair juror in this case?" During voir dire, the judge asked the panel, "Do any of you have a feeling for or against [Petitioner] or the Prosecution?" Later, defense counsel asked the venire whether "this is simply not a good case for them to be a fair juror." None of the jurors subsequently impaneled answered any of these questions so as to reflect racial bias. The jury ultimately found Petitioner guilty of the latter three counts but failed to reach a verdiet on the attempted sexual assault charge.

15 Two weeks later, Petitioner filed a motion for juror contact information, alleging that "some members of the jury used ethnic slurs in the course of deliberations." The trial court ordered Petitioner to submit affidavits regarding the " 'who, what, when, and where' of the allegations of juror misconduct." Petitioner's counsel subsequently filed an affidavit averring that, shortly after entry of the verdict, two jurors informed her that "some of the other jurors expressed a bias toward [Petitioner] and the alibi witness because they were Hispanic."³ The trial court then authorized Petitioner's counsel to contact these jurors, but only to secure affidavits regarding their "best recollection of exactly what each 'biased' juror stated about [Petitioner] and/or the alibi witness."

4 6 Thereafter, Petitioner submitted affidavits from jurors M.M. and LT., both of whom alleged that juror H.C. made racially biased statements during deliberations. According to M.M., H.C. said that "I think he did it because he's Mexican and Mexican men take whatever they want." She also stated that H.C. "made other statements concerning Mexican men being physically controlling of women because they have a sense of entitlement and think they can 'do whatever they want' with women." L.T. stated that H.C. "believed that [Petitioner] was guilty because in his experience as an ex-law enforcement officer, Mexican men had a bravado that caused them to believe they could do whatever they wanted with women." L.T. further averred that H.C. "said that where he used to patrol, nine times out of ten Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls." Finally, LT. stated that H.C. "said that he did not think the alibi witness was credible because, among other things, he was 'an illegal'" Based on these affidavits, Petitioner moved for a new trial. The trial court denied the motion, finding that CRE 606(b) barred any inquiry into H.C.'s alleged bias during deliberations.⁴

¶ 7 Petitioner appealed, and a split division of the court of appeals affirmed. Pena-Rodriguez, ¶ 3. The majority first held that CRE 606(b) controlled the admissibility of the jurors' affidavits and that the affidavits did not satisfy the rule's exceptions. Id. at ¶¶ 33, 38, 41-42. The majority then rejected Petitioner's constitutional challenge regarding his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, holding that Petitioner "waived his ability to challenge the verdict on this basis by failing to sufficiently question jurors about racial bias in voir dire." Id. at 148. Writing in dissent, Judge Taubman did not disagree with the majority's general analysis of CRE 606(b). Id. at ¶107 n.3. He concluded, however, that CRE 606(b) was unconstitutional as applied. Id. at 1107. We granted certiorari.

II. Standard of Review

18 The general applicability of CRE 606(b) is a question of law that we review de novo. See Kendrick v. Pippin, 252 P.3d 1052, 1064 (Colo.2011), abrogated on other grounds by Bedor v. Johnson, 2013 CO 4, 292 P.8d 924. But whether the jury was influenced by extrancous prejudicial information is a mixed question of law and fact; we accept the trial court's findings of fact absent an abuse of discretion, but we review the court's legal conclusions de novo. Id.

III. Analysis

T 9 This case requires us to resolve whether CRE 606(b) bars admission of juror affidavits suggesting that a juror made racially biased statements during deliberations. To do so, we first examine the plain language of the rule and its overarching purpose. We then conclude that such affidavits indeed implicate CRE 606(b) and do not fall within the rule's "extrancous prejudicial information" exception. Finally, we consider whether the rule was unconstitutional as applied to Petitioner, and we determine that enforcing the rule did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.

A. CRE 606(b): Language and Purpose

T10 CRE 606(b) is broad in scope: It precludes courts from peering beyond the veil that shrouds jury deliberations. Specifically, the rule provides as follows:

Upon an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations or to the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing him to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or concerning his mental processes in connection therewith.

CRE 606(b). The rule does, however, enumerate three narrow exceptions: "[A] juror may testify about (1) whether extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jurors' attention, (2) whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear upon any juror, or (8) whether there was a mistake in entering the verdict onto the verdict form." Id. Colorado's rule is virtually identical to its federal counterpart. Compare id. with Fed. R. Evid. 606(b). See also CRE 606(b) committee emt. ("ICRE] 606(b) has been amended to bring it into conformity with the 2006 amendments to the federal rule. ...").

CRE 606(b) effectuates three fundamental purposes: It "promote[s] finality of verdicts, shield[s] verdiets from impeachment, and protect[s] jurors from harassment and coercion." People v. Harlan, 109 P.3d 616, 624 (Colo.2005). Thus, the rule "strongly disfavors any juror testimony impeaching a verdict." Id. We have recognized that the federal rule is equally forbidding. See Stewart ex rel. Stewart v. Rice, 47 P.3d 316, 321 (Colo.2002) ("[Fed. R. Evid. 606(b)] would have been hard to paint with a broader brush, and in terms of subject, [its] exclusionary principle reaches everything which relates to the jury's deliberations, unless one of the exceptions applies." (quoting Christopher B. Mueller, Jurors' Impeach ment of Verdicts and Indictments in Federal Court Under Rule 606(b), 57 Neb. L.Rev. 920, 985 (1978))).

¶12 With the prosecriptive language and purpose of CRE 606(b) in mind, we now consider whether the rule operates to bar admission of the juror affidavits in this case.

B. CRE 606(b) Bars Admission of the Jurors' Affidavits

118 CRE 606(b)s plain language clearly bars admission of the jurors' affidavits in this case. Absent narrow exceptions, the rule unambiguously prohibits juror testimony "as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations." Here, Petitioner seeks to introduce juror testimony precisely to that effect, as the affidavits from both M.M. and L.T. pertain to statements made during deliberations. Therefore, CRE 606(b) precludes their admission.

T14 Petitioner argues that the affidavits do not involve "an inquiry into the validity of [the] verdict" as contemplated by CRE 606(b). In Petitioner's view, the rule only applies to statements regarding the jury's actual deliberative process-that is, how the jury reached its verdict-and not to evidence of a particular juror's racial bias. To the extent that we can even parse this semantic distinction, we deem it immaterial. Petitioner seeks to introduce evidence of comments made during deliberations in order to nullify the verdict and obtain a new trial. Such a request necessarily involves an inquiry into the verdiet's validity, which is the very inquiry that CRE 606(b) prevents.

1 15 Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court expressly rejected this exact argument in Warger v. Shauers, — U.S. —, 135 8.Ct. 521, 528, 190 L.Ed.2d 422 (2014), determining that the rule "does not focus on the means by which deliberations evidence might be used to invalidate a verdict." Rather, the Court held that the rule "simply applies '[dJuring an inquiry into the validity of the verdiet'-that is, during a proceeding in which the verdict may be rendered invalid." Id. (alteration in original). Although the Court was interpreting Fed. R. Evid. 606(b), we have previously recognized that CRE 606(b) is "[slubstantially similar to its federal counterpart" and that we "look to the federal authority for guidance in construing our rule." Stewart, 47 P.3d at 321. Thus, Warger forecloses Petitioner's argument.

116 Petitioner next contends that, even if CRE 606(b) applies, the affidavits satisfy the rule's exception for "extraneous prejudicial information." He is mistaken. That exception pertains to "legal content and specific factual information learned from outside the record and relevant to the issues in a case." Kendrick, 252 P.3d at 1064; see, eg., Harlan, 109 P.3d at 629 (holding that two jurors' introductions of annotated Bibles into deliberations during a death penalty case constituted extraneous information because "[tlhe trial court had not admitted these materials into evidence, nor did the court's instructions allow their use"). But it is "generally undisputed" that jurors "may apply their general knowledge and everyday experience when deciding cases." Kendrick, 252 P.3d at 1064; accord Warger, — U.S. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 529 ("Generally speaking, information is deemed 'extraneous' if it derives from a source 'external' to the jury. 'External matters include publicity and information related specifically to the case the jurors are meant to decide, while "internal matters include the general body of experiences that jurors are understood to bring with them to the jury room."). Here, H.C. did not perform any improper investigation into Petitioner's case, nor did he introduce evidence from outside the record into the jury room. Rather, his alleged racial bias arose from his personal beliefs and everyday experience. Such bias, however ideologically loathsome, is not "extraneous" as contemplated by CRE 606(b).

T 17 And once again, Warger scuttles Petitioner's claim. In that car-crash case, following a verdict for the defendant, a juror reported that another juror stated during deliberations that her daughter had once caused a motor vehicle accident and that "if her daughter had been sued, it would have ruined her life." — U.S. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 524. The Court held that such information "falls on the "internal side of the line: [The juror's] daughter's accident may well have informed her general views about negligence liability for car crashes, but it did not provide either her or the rest of the jury with any specific knowledge regarding [the] collision." Id. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 529. The Court noted that even if the juror's comments would have warranted a challenge for cause, that did not render them "extraneous," as otherwise "[the 'extraneous' information exception would swallow much of the rest of Rule 606(b)." Id. at —, 185 S.Ct. at 580. The same analysis applies here.

118 Accordingly, we hold that the affidavits concerning H.C.'s biased statements fall within the broad sweep of CRE 606(b) and that they do not satisfy the rule's "extraneous prejudicial information" exception. We now address whether CRE 606(b) was unconstitutional as applied in this case.⁵

C. CRE 606(b) Was Not Unconstitutional as Applied

{19 The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "the accused shall enjoy the right to ... an impartial jury." The question here is whether the trial court's application of CRE 606(b), which functioned to bar evidence of H.C.'s alleged racial bias against Petitioner, violated his Sixth Amendment right.

¶ 20 The U.S. Supreme Court addressed a similar-though not identical-issue in Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 LEd.2d 90 (1987). In that case, following the verdict, a juror contacted defense counsel and informed him that several jurors had consumed alcohol on lunch breaks during the trial and had slept through afternoons, while another juror told counsel that the jury was "one big party" and that numerous jurors used alcohol and drugs. Id. at 118, 115-16, 107 S.Ct. 2739. After holding that Fed. R. Evid. 606(b) barred this testimony, see id. at 125, 107 S.Ct. 2739, the Court considered whether the Sixth Amendment nevertheless required the trial court to examine such evidence. The Court first declared that "long-recognized and very substantial concerns support the protection of jury deliberations from intrusive inquiry." Id. at 127, 107 S.Ct. 2789. Turning to the opposing scale, the Court reasoned that "several aspects of the trial process" protect a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Id. The Court identified four specific safeguards: (1) voir dire; (2) the court and counsel's ability to observe the jury during trial; (8) jurors' opportunity to "report inappropriate juror behavior to the court before they render a verdict"; and (4) the opportunity to use non-juror evidence of misconduct to impeach the verdict following trial, Id. The Court thus concluded that Rule 606(b) need not yield to Sixth Amendment considerations. See id.

121 Tanner, then, held that Rule 606(b) was not unconstitutional as applied to cases of juror incompetence. Last year, the Court in Warger extended Tanmer to cases of juror bias. Relying on Tanner, the Court recognized that "(elven if jurors lie in voir dire in a way that conceals bias, juror impartiality is adequately assured by the parties' ability to bring to the court's attention any evidence of bias before the verdict is rendered, and to employ nonjuror evidence even after the verdict is rendered." Warger, — U.S. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 529. Therefore, the Court held that Tanner foreclosed "any claim that Rule 606(b) is unconstitutional in cireumstances such as these." Id.

122 Combined, Tanner and Warger stand for a simple but crucial principle: Protecting the secrecy of jury deliberations is of paramount importance in our justice system. See Tanmer, 488 U.S. at 119, 107 S.Ct. 2789 ("Substantial policy considerations support the common-law rule against the admission of jury testimony to impeach a verdict."); Warger, — U.S. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 528 ("Rule 606(b) was premised on the concerns that the use of deliberations evidence to challenge verdicts would represent a threat to both jurors and finality in those cireum-stances not covered by the Rule's express exceptions."). It was this principle that animated the Court's refusals to deem Rule 606(b) unconstitutional, despite concerns regarding juror impropriety. Indeed, although the Tanner Court acknowledged that "post-verdict investigation into juror misconduct would in some instances lead to the invalidation of verdicts reached after irresponsible or improper juror behavior," it warned that "[iJt is not at all clear ... that the jury system could survive such efforts to perfect it." 483 U.S. at 120, 107 S.Ct. 2739. As the Court recognized, not only would authorizing post-verdict investigations of jurors "seriously disrupt the finality of the process," but the very potential for such investigations would shatter public confidence in the fundamental notion of trial by jury. Id. ("[Flull and frank discussion in the jury room, jurors' willingness to return an unpopular verdict, and the community's trust in a system that relies on the decisions of laypeople would all be undermined by a barrage of postverdict serutiny of juror conduct."); see also United States v. Benally, 546 F.3d 1230, 1233 (10th Cir.2008) ("If what went on in the jury room were judicially reviewable for reasonableness or fairness, trials would no longer truly be by jury, as the Constitution commands."). In fact, the Court perceived such a slippery slope as far back as 100 years ago:

[Llet it onee be established that verdicts solemnly made and publicly returned into court can be attacked and set aside on the testimony of those who took part in their publication and all verdicts could be, and many would be, followed by an inquiry in the hope of discovering something which might invalidate the finding. Jurors would be harassed and beset by the defeated party in an effort to secure from them evidence of facts which might establish misconduct sufficient to set aside a verdict. If evidence thus secured could be thus used, the result would be to make what was intended to be a private deliberation, the constant subject of public investigation; to the destruction of all frankness and freedom of discussion and conference.

McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 267-68, 35 S.Ct. 783, 59 L.Ed. 1300 (1915).

1 23 Turning to the instant case, this case law compels the conclusion that CRE 606(b) was not unconstitutional as applied to Petitioner. A contrary holding would ignore both the policy underlying CRE 606(b) and the unwavering Supreme Court precedent emphasizing the magnitude of that policy. To be sure, neither Tanner nor Warger involved the exact issue of racial bias. But in examining the Court's jurisprudence, we cannot discern a dividing line between different types of juror bias or misconduct, whereby one form of partiality would implicate a party's Sixth Amendment right while another would not. Cf Benally, 546 F.3d at 1241 ("[Olnee it is held that the rules of evidence must be subordinated to the need to admit evidence of Sixth Amendment violations, we do not see how the courts could stop at the 'most serious' such violations."). To draw such a line would not only violate the longstanding rule of shielding private jury deliberations from public view-not to mention incentivize post-verdict harassment of jurors-but it would also require trial courts to make arbitrary judgments that hinge on the severity of a particular juror's impropriety or the intensity of his bias. We decline to sanction such a haphazard process.

24 Admittedly, bias is less readily visible than intoxication, meaning the second Tan-mer protection-the ability of the court to observe the jury's behavior during trial-carries less force in such cases. But that did not prevent the Warger Court from deeming the remaining Tanner safeguards sufficient to protect a party's constitutional rights, even when a biased juror lied during voir dire. See Warger, — U.S. at —, 135 S.Ct. at 529; see also Benally, 546 F.3d at 1240 ("The safeguards that the Court relied upon for exposing the drug and alcohol use amongst jurors in Tanner are also available to expose racial biases ...." (emphasis added). The same is true here. Other jurors could have informed the court or counsel of H.C.'s statements prior to delivering the verdict, and any non-juror evidence of his bias remained admissible post-verdiet. That these safeguards did not benefit Petitioner in this case does not nullify their validity, nor Woarger's clear endorsement of their ability to protect a party's constitutional right to an impartial jury.⁶

1 25 Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court's application of CRE 606(b) to bar admission of the jurors' affidavits did not violate Petitioner's Sixth Amendment right.

IV. Conclusion

CRE 606(b) operates to ensure that the privacy of jury deliberations remains sacrosanct. The rule, and the policy it buttresses, is squarely on point in this case. We thus hold that the jurors' affidavits regarding H.C.'s biased statements fall within the broad sweep of CRE 606(b) and that they-do not satisfy the rule's "extraneous prejudicial information" exception. We further hold that the trial court's application of CRE 606(b) did not violate Petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

JUSTICE MARQUEZ dissents, and JUSTICE EID and JUSTICE HOOD join in the dissent.

1 . Specifically, we granted certiorari to consider: "Whether C.R.E. 606(b) bars the admission of juror statements showing evidence of racial bias made during jury deliberations, and if so, whether the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial nevertheless requires such statements' admission."

2 . The People also charged Petitioner with driving under the influence, but they voluntarily dismissed that charge prior to trial.

3 . Petitioner's friend, M. Chavez, testified that Petitioner was with him at the time of the incident and thus could not have been the man in the bathroom.

4 . The trial court did conduct a brief hearing to investigate whether H.C. deliberately misrepresented his experience in law enforcement during voir dire; it found his failure to disclose this information to be inadvertent. This issue is irrelevant to this appeal.

5 . The court of appeals refused to conduct this analysis, holding that Petitioner "waived his ability to challenge the verdict on this basis by failing to sufficiently question jurors about racial bias in voir dire." Pena-Rodriguez, ¶ 43. But a defense attorney's decision not to ask about racial bias- and to instead attempt to root out prejudice through generalized questioning-is entirely defensible as a matter of strategy. See United States v. Villar, 586 F.3d 76, 87 n.5 (1st Cir.2009) ("[MJany defense attorneys have sound tactical reasons for not proposing specific voir dire questions regarding racial or ethnic bias because it might be viewed as insulting to jurors or as raising an issue defense counsel does not want to highlight."). Here, Petitioner's counsel asked potential jurors not whether they took issue with Petitioner's race but simply if they could be fair. We cannot conclude that this tactical decision to avoid explicitly inquiring about racial bias-which would have underscored Petitioner's minority background-constituied an affirmative waiver of Petitioner's constitutional right to an impartial jury.

6 . We recognize that the Warger Court commented, in a footnote, that [there may be cases of juror bias so extreme that, almost by definition, the jury trial right has been abridged." — U.S. at — n.3, 135 S.Ct. at 529 n.3. But the Court declined to consider in that case "whether the usual safeguards are or are not sufficient to protect the integrity of the process." Id. Absent a clear command from the Supreme Court, we will not defy the unmistakable trend in the Court's case law-as articulated in both Tanner and Warger-preserving the sanctity of jury deliberations and thus refusing to deem Rule 606(b) unconstitutional.