Cory Spears v. Charles Greiner
2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 19818, 459 F.3d 200 (2006)
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Rule of Law:
A supplemental jury instruction to a deadlocked jury is not unconstitutionally coercive simply because it lacks specific cautionary language for jurors not to abandon their conscientiously held beliefs, provided the instruction does not pressure jurors to convince one another and the totality of the circumstances indicates a lack of coercion.
Facts:
- Corey Spears was charged with participating in an armed robbery along with his co-defendant, Lamar Súber.
- During the first day of jury deliberations in Spears's trial, the jury sent a note to the judge stating, 'We have a hung jury on both defendants and don’t think anything will help change our decision.'
- The trial judge initially mentioned the time and money spent on the case but, after an objection, retracted that statement.
- The judge then instructed the jury that it was 'far too premature' to be deadlocked and asked them to 'please continue your deliberations with a view toward arriving at a verdict if that’s possible.'
- Defense counsel did not object to this final version of the instruction.
- The jury continued deliberating for the rest of the day and into the following morning.
- The jury ultimately returned a verdict finding Spears guilty of robbery but remained deadlocked on the charges against his co-defendant, Súber.
Procedural Posture:
- Corey Spears was convicted of first-degree robbery by a jury in the New York State Supreme Court, Kings County (the trial court).
- Spears appealed to the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, which unanimously affirmed his conviction.
- The New York Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) denied Spears's application for leave to appeal.
- Spears filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
- The district court denied the petition but granted a certificate of appealability on the claim related to the supplemental jury instruction, allowing Spears (petitioner-appellant) to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a trial court's supplemental instruction to a deadlocked jury violate a defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when it encourages further deliberation but does not include specific cautionary language instructing jurors not to surrender their conscientiously held beliefs?
Opinions:
Majority - Koeltl, District Judge
No, the trial court's supplemental instruction did not violate the defendant's constitutional rights. To determine if a supplemental instruction is coercive, courts must evaluate it 'in its context and under all the circumstances,' per the standard set in Lowenfield v. Phelps. Unlike the instruction found to be coercive in Smalls v. Batista, this charge did not obligate jurors to convince one another or pressure minority jurors to reconsider their views. The court found several factors indicated a lack of coercion: 1) the instruction merely asked the jury to continue deliberating 'if that's possible,' without directing them to change their minds; 2) the defense counsel did not object to the final instruction, suggesting it was not perceived as coercive at the time; 3) the jury's subsequent actions, including deliberating for a significant additional period and returning a mixed verdict (convicting Spears but deadlocking on his co-defendant), strongly indicated that jurors were not surrendering their individual judgments just to reach a result. Therefore, under the totality of the circumstances, the charge was not impermissibly coercive.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the scope of the rule from Smalls v. Batista, establishing that there is no bright-line requirement for all Allen-type charges to include specific language cautioning jurors not to surrender their conscientiously held beliefs. It reinforces the 'totality of the circumstances' test from Lowenfield v. Phelps as the controlling standard. The key distinction is whether the charge is neutral—merely encouraging further deliberation—or whether it actively pressures minority jurors by instructing them to re-examine their views in light of the majority's opinion. This case provides lower courts with more flexibility in crafting instructions for deadlocked juries, focusing the constitutional analysis on the overall coercive effect rather than the presence or absence of specific 'magic words.'
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