When the Verdict Gets Weird, Try to not Make it Weird Before Vacating for New Trial
State v. Bringas (HSC August 31, 2021)
Background. Adrian-John Bringas was indicted
with murder in the second degree of a minor known as W and assault in the
second degree of W’s brother, C.U. At trial, the jury heard evidence that Bringas
was riding his bicycle late one night in Kalihi near the Kuhio Park Terrace
when his bike chain fell off. He stopped to fix it with a knife he had in his
backpack. He was approached by a minor known as W. W offered him cannabis.
Bringas testified that the mood felt “dark” and W was asking him several
questions. A family friend of W, Eileen Prescott, showed up with her boyfriend.
That lightened the situation.
Prescott testified that she saw Bringas and W
talking. She turned away to her boyfriend, R. K., and overheard Bringas ask W
if he wanted to buy a “dime” but W said he did not have any money. Then she
noticed Bringas and W shoving each other. She testified Bringas grab a shiny
object from his backpack, case W, and stab him. Bringas walked back to the
dumpster and pointed him out to R.K. R.K. tacked him to the ground and they
started to fight. They stopped when R.K. saw the shiny object in Bringas’s
hand. C.U. showed up and attacked Bringas. C.U. hit Bringas with an objected
and Bringas fell to the ground. C.U. testified he could not remember if he used
an object to hit Bringas, but also testified he felt blood on his leg. He ran away
from Bringas.
Bringas testified that he gathered trash and
walked it over to a dumpster. He was hit on the head and fell to the ground. He
got on his feet, but slipped and rolled his ankle falling again. Then an
unidentified person started punching and kicking him. Bringas testified he
fought the person off and started to run, but was met by two males who attacked
him. Bringas grabbed the knife and shouted at them to get back. He saw Prescott
had his backpack and his belongings were on the ground. Bringas was hit again
and felt a person on top of him hitting and kicking him. He flailed his right
hand with the knife to protect himself. Then the attack stopped and he ran
away.
The circuit court, the Hon. Judge Paul Wong,
instructed the jurors about murder in the second degree and the lesser-included
offenses of assault in the first degree, assault in the 2d degree, and assault
in the 3d degree. It also included the special interrogatory of mutual affray
for assault in the 3d degree. The circuit court instructed the jury about
assault in the 3d degree and mutual affray for the other count.
The jury returned its verdict form by marking in
Count 1 that Bringas was guilty of murder in the 2d degree and it answered the
special interrogatory by indicating that the prosecution did not prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that the fight or scuffle was not entered into by mutual
affray. Bringas was acquitted of Count 2—assault in the 2d degree—but it also
found that the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the fight or
scuffle was not entered into by mutual consent.
At the reading of the verdict, the clerk did not
read the answers to the special interrogatories. The defense did not request to
poll the jury. The jury was excused. When Bringas learned about the verdict form
and interrogatory, he filed a motion for new trial. The motion was denied and
he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He appealed to the ICA,
which affirmed.
The Circuit Court Didn’t Have to Recall the Jury Because
the Verdict is not Ambiguous. Bringas argued that when the jury returns an
ambiguous verdict, the trial court must either “have the jurors return to
clarify the verdict” or, if the jury has already been discharged, “the only
available remedy is a remand for a new trial[.]” Dias v. Vanek, 67 Haw.
114, 118, 679 P.2d 133, 136 (1984). The HSC disagreed.
“[T]he verdict here is not ambiguous—the jury
clearly found Bringas guilty of second-degree murder for the stabbing of W.”
And while Dias does lay out the preferred remedy of recalling the jury
to clarify its verdict, courts are free to amend the verdict “when the
intention of the jury is clear.” Dias, 67 Haw. at 117, 679 P.2d at 135.
The HSC held that even though the jury did not follow its instructions because it
went ahead and answered the special interrogatory after finding him guilty of
murder, it did not render the verdict improper as a matter of law. Compare
Kanahele v. Han, 125 Hawai'i 446, 263 P.3d 726 (2011).
Courts can Avoid a New Trial when it can Reconcile
an Inconsistent Verdict. Bringas also argued that the motion for new trial should have
been granted. HRS § 635-56 gives the trial court the power to set side verdicts
resulting from a misunderstanding of the charges:
In any civil case or in
any criminal case wherein a verdict of guilty has been rendered, the court may
set aside the verdict when it appears to be so manifestly against the weight of
the evidence as to indicate bias, prejudice, passion, or misunderstanding of
the charge of the court on the party of the jury; or the court may in any civil
or criminal case grant a new trial for any legal cause.
See also HRPP Rule 33 (new trial
may be ordered “in the interests of justice.”).
The HSC first addressed the threshold issue of how
to analyze confusing verdicts. It adopted the standard from civil cases. “A
conflict in the jury’s answers to questions in a special verdict will warrant a
new trial only if those answers are irreconcilably inconsistent, and the verdict
will not be disturbed if the answers can be reconciled under any theory.” Carr
v. Strode, 79 Hawai'i 475, 489, 904 P.2d 489, 503 (1995). The HSC noted
that in Miyamoto v. Lum, 104 Hawai'i 1, 7, 84 P.3d 509, 515 (2004),
it found that the verdict in a civil case was “irreconcilably inconsistent”
only after careful scrutiny of the verdict. From these cases, the HSC distilled
the principle that “appellate courts should attempt to first reconcile
seemingly-inconsistent verdict before vacatur[.]” The HSC extended the
principle to criminal cases.
The HSC noted that
trying to reconcile an inconsistent jury verdict advances the policy of
vigorously guarding the “sanctity of jury deliberations.” Oahu Publications, Inc. v. Ahn,
133 Hawai'i 482, 498-499, 331 P.3d 460, 476-477 (2014). It also avoids speculating
about the jury’s deliberations and safeguards their results. Federal courts
adopt a similar rule. Dunn v. United States,
284 U.S. 390, 393 (1932) (“Consistency in the verdict is not necessary.”). In
sum, the HSC held that “a court tasked with determining the effect of an inconsistent
verdict should attempt to harmonize the inconsistencies in the verdict so that
they are reconcilable.”
In this case, the HSC held
that it could reconcile the guilty verdict with the special interrogatory.
According to the HSC, the jury found Bringas guilty of murder in the second
degree and found that Bringas and W entered into a fight or scuffle by mutual
affray. The mutual affray does not arise to self-defense and does not negate
any element of murder. It is not irreconcilable and the circuit court did not err
in denying the motion for new trial.
Justice McKenna’s Dissent.
Justice McKenna dissented and wrote that the rule in
Carr v. Strode, supra, should not extend to criminal
cases. Criminal cases require the government to prove its case beyond a reasonable
doubt. Civil cases are usually between private parties under a lighter burden
of proof. Justice McKenna wrote that while courts may attempt to “search for a
reasonable way to read the verdicts as expressing a coherent view of a case,” in
civil cases, it is not a “court’s function to search for a way to sustain a
conviction” in criminal cases. That’s the prosecution’s job.
For Justice McKenna, verdict
in a criminal case must be free from ambiguity and it should be set aside when “it
does not convey the meaning and intention of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”
See, e.g., Yeager v. People,
462 P.2d 487, 489 (Colo. 1969); Hyslop v. State,
68 N.W.2d 6998, 702 (Neb. 1955); Barnhill v. State,
41 So. 2d 329, 331 (Fla. 1949). Justice McKenna wrote that the verdict here is
not free from ambiguity. The jury was instructed to answer the special interrogatory
if and only if it found Bringas not guilty of murder in the second degree,
assault in the first degree, and assault in the second degree. That makes this
verdict inconsistent and ambiguous. Justice McKenna even pointed out that one
of the headings in the majority’s analysis concedes that the verdict is “inconsistent.”
For her, that would have been enough to vacate the conviction and set the case
for a new trial.
Justice Wilson’s
Dissent. Justice Wilson tracked the history of the existing rule
in Hawai'i. In Territory v. Thompson,
26 Haw. 181 (Terr. 1921), the territorial supreme court examined inconsistent
verdicts among different defendants charged with larceny and cattle theft. Id. at 181-182. The evidence against all of them was
identical and yet Thompson was the only one found guilty. Id. at 182. The territorial court reversed the
conviction and held that the verdict was “neither responsive to the evidence,
in accord with reason n or reconcilable with their oaths as jurymen.” Id. at 184. The jury, it held, was not “permitted to
make a difference in their cases by a purely arbitrary finding.” Id. That case has been cited when examining
inconsistent verdicts in both civil and criminal cases. State v. Gager, 45 Haw. 478, 484, 370
P.2d 739, 743 (1962); Kapiolani Commercial
Center v. A & S P’ship, 68 Haw. 580, 584, 723 P.2d 181,
184 (1986).
For Justice Wilson agreed
that the rule as it exists now requires a new trial when the verdict is “irreconcilably
inconsistent, and the verdict will not be disturbed if the answers can be reconciled
under any theory.” Miyamoto,
104 Hawai'i at 8, 84 P.3d at 516. But the theory has to be “supported by the
trial court’s instructions tot eh jury.” Id.
For Justice Wilson, that’s not the case here.
The jury was instructed
about murder in the second degree, its lesser included offenses, mutual affray,
and self-defense. The jury here did not follow the court’s instructions. It found
Bringas guilty as charged and found that the prosecution failed to disprove
mutual affray—an incomplete defense to a lesser included offense. It also found
Bringas not guilty of assault in the second degree and found that the
prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no mutual
affray. For Justice Wilson that was impossible to reconcile under the rule that
goes back to the territorial days of Thompson.
Justice Wilson also
agreed with Justice McKenna that a new standard should be fashioned for
criminal cases. In the century that has passed since Thompson, courts from other jurisdictions
have fashioned a different rule for criminal cases. Instead of looking for an irreconcilable
inconsistency, the verdict “in a criminal case should be certain and devoid of
ambiguity.” Yeager v. People, 462
P.2d at 489. See also State v. Douglas,
676 S.E.2d 6290, 623 (N.C. Cir. Ct. App. 2009) (“Verdicts and judgments in
criminal actions should be clear and free from ambiguity or uncertainty
[because] enforcement of the criminal law and the liberty of the citizen demand
exactitude.”). Justice Wilson summed it up that under either test—the century
old Thompson standard or the “devoid
of ambiguity” standard evincing greater concern for rights of the accused—Bringas
did not receive a fair trial with that verdict. He would have ordered a new
trial.
Verdicts in Criminal
Cases as Opposed to Civil Disputes. The differences between
criminal and civil cases are often discussed among lawyers, judges, clients,
and everything else. Civil cases almost always relate to money and property.
The verdict form and interrogatories are often complicated and call upon jurors
to come up with a number for damages and make specific findings. Criminal cases
don’t work that way. There’s the charged offense, the included offenses, and a
few special interrogatories like mutual affray here, or kidnapping, and merger.
When things get weird and make little sense, the majority takes the view that
the court must explore every possible theory to get the verdict to make sense. Once
that’s done and if it still doesn’t make sense, then a new trial can be
declared. The dissenters think that that rule should be left to civil cases
where a person’s liberty is not at stake. It should be noted that Justice Eddins
did not participate in this case. Perhaps the devoid-of-ambiguity test can make
a comeback in the future.
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