In re Boyette

In In re Boyette (2013) 56 Cal.4th 866, a death row defendant filed a habeas corpus petition based in part on juror misconduct. The referee found that two jurors had committed misconduct when, at the instance of a third juror, they watched a movie on the prison system in order to gain insight into "the realities of life in prison." (Id. at pp. 891-892.) The respondent conceded that the jurors had committed misconduct. (Id. at p. 892.) The Supreme Court determined that the jurors' conduct in that case did not establish a substantial likelihood of juror bias. (In re Boyette, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 892.) The court first determined that the content of the movie was not the type of "evidence that, 'judged objectively, was so prejudicial in and of itself that it was inherently and substantially likely to have influenced a juror.' " (Ibid.) "The information, for example, was not of a suppressed confession or evidence of other crimes that the trial court had excluded as too prejudicial. It was not akin to a bell that could not be unrung." (Id. at pp. 892-893.) The court continued on to state the movie was one at least two other jurors had already seen and the most that could be said was that the jurors who engaged in misconduct "may have learned some general information about prison life that some of the other jurors already knew . . . ." (In re Boyette, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 893.) The court also concluded the record did not show "that 'from the nature of the misconduct and the surrounding circumstances, . . . it was substantially likely a juror was "actually biased" against' the petitioner. " (Id. at p. 893.)