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State v. Rivera9/9/1997
rejudiced by a newspaper article about a jury in another case. That jury, the paper reported, was chastised for being deadlocked. The paper further quoted the Judge in that case as saying that a stubborn juror had wasted a good deal of taxpayer time and money. The defendants contended that this article could have prejudiced their jury. The Indiana court disagreed, noting that the article did not concern the defendants or their case; it did not concern their Judge; and it did not concern a similar crime. See id. The same must be said here.
{10} Defendant contends that some percentage of New Mexicans viewed the acquittal of Simpson as an inJustice, and therefore the televised verdict may have persuaded his jury to convict him. Although we agree with Defendant that it may have been preferable from the standpoint of the seriousness and the dignity befitting jury deliberations that the jury should not have been allowed to watch television during breaks in their deliberations, we cannot agree with Defendant's basic proposition. That proposition is that there are certain items of information, apart from anything concerning Defendant's case or Defendant's trial or Defendant's crime, that should create a presumption of prejudice if the jury received them.
{11} Rather, we agree with the State that it is sheer speculation to suppose that the Simpson verdict affected the jury at all, any more than the jurors' choice of what to have for lunch or their viewing of television in the evenings during the trial would have affected them. As the State argues, "all unsequestered jurors receive unrelated outside information during the course of their deliberations, and it would be an unreasonable burden on the court system to be required automatically to presume prejudice and put the state to the burden of disproving prejudice from every piece of unrelated information received by the jurors."
{12} Because the viewing of the return of the Simpson verdict did not violate any of the court's admonitions or instructions and because the Simpson case had nothing whatsoever to do with this case, we hold that Defendant is not entitled to a new trial. We limit the rule concerning extraneous information to that information that relates more directly to the case under consideration. Compare People v. Budzyn, 456 Mich. 77, 566 N.W.2d 229 (Mich. 1997) (murder conviction of white police officer accused of beating black man about the head with flashlight reversed when jurors watched videotape of movie "Malcolm X" near the end of trial) with W. R. Habeeb, Annotation, Permitting jurors to attend theater or the like during course of criminal trial as ground for mistrial, new trial or reversal, 32 A.L.R.2d 847, 850-51 (1954) (stating general rule that it is not reversible error for jurors to view extraneous entertainment unless there is something peculiar about the entertainment that might bear upon the case they are then trying). There being nothing peculiar about the Simpson case that would bear on this DWI case, we believe that no presumption of prejudice arose.
Conclusion
{13} Defendant's conviction is affirmed.
{14} IT IS SO ORDERED.
LYNN PICKARD, Judge
WE CONCUR:
A. JOSEPH ALARID, Judge
MICHAEL D. BUSTAMANTE, Judge
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