State v. Depaz

Summary

The Washington Supreme Court considers whether a trial court abused its discretion by dismissing a known holdout juror who communicated with her husband during deliberations. The court declines to extend the heightened standard from State v. Elmore to this type of alleged misconduct and holds that, where the court knows a deliberating juror's substantive position, it must determine whether the misconduct prejudiced the juror's ability to deliberate fairly. The court concludes that the trial court's stated grounds for dismissing the juror were unsupported by the record.

Holdings

1. The reasonable-possibility standard does not extend to a case involving a holdout juror's communication with a third party because investigating that misconduct does not necessarily require inquiry into the juror's views of the evidence or the substance of deliberations.
2. When the trial court knows a deliberating juror's substantive opinion of the case, the court must determine whether the juror's misconduct affected the juror's ability to deliberate fairly before dismissing the juror under RCW 2.36.110.
3. Juror 3 committed misconduct by communicating with her husband about the case after deliberations had begun.
4. The trial court abused its discretion because its decision to dismiss juror 3 rested on an erroneous view of the record and lacked tenable grounds showing that her communication affected her ability to deliberate fairly.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the reasonable-possibility standard from State v. Elmore applies when a deliberating holdout juror is accused of misconduct based on communicating with a third party.
2. Whether RCW 2.36.110 permits dismissal of a known holdout juror for misconduct without a showing that the misconduct prejudiced the juror's ability to deliberate fairly.
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by dismissing juror 3 under RCW 2.36.110.

Disposition

reversed