Franklin v. State (2004)

In Franklin v. State, 138 S.W.3d 351 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004), defense counsel had asked the venire members during voir dire whether any of them knew any of the participants in the trial; none indicated that he did. 138 S.W.3d at 352. However, when the State called the victim as its first witness, one of the jurors notified the judge that she recognized the witness as a member of her daughter's girl scout troop, of which the juror had been assistant leader. Id. The court asked the juror whether she could base her judgment solely on the evidence, and the juror stated that she could. The court then denied defense counsel's motion for mistrial based on the assertion that he would have exercised a peremptory challenge against the juror had he known about the relationship. Id. The court also refused to allow additional questioning about the juror's relationship with the victim, how long the relationship lasted, whether she could set aside the relationship in deciding the case, and whether she would give more or less credence to the victim's testimony and truthfulness because of the relationship. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the court of appeals had properly applied the standard of harm under rule 44.2(a) in reversing and remanding the case for a new trial. Franklin, 138 S.W.3d at 355. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that "all of these factors together"--the juror's failure to reveal her relationship to the victim, the trial judge's denial of a mistrial, and the judge's refusal to allow defense counsel to question the juror about her relationship to the victim--affected the defendant's right to trial by an impartial jury. Id. The court pointed out that, to show bias in Texas, the defendant must show that the juror withheld material information in voir dire despite the defendant's exercise of due diligence. Id. at 355. Thus, it was not necessary that the defendant show actual bias on the part of the juror, but only that the concealed information had a tendency to show bias, which the relationship between the juror and the victim did show. Id. at 356.