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IN THE FIFTIETH JUDICIAL DISTRICT, PARISH OF PEINE DE MORT
STATE OF LOUISIANA
No. _____
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STATE OF LOUISIANA, Plaintiff
v.
JOHN CLIENT, Defendant
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MOTION FOR ADEQUATE SEQUESTRATION OF JURORS
COMES NOW, JOHN CLIENT, by counsel, and moves this Court pursuant to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and Article 1, Sections 2, 3, 5, 13, 14, 16 & 17 of the Louisiana
Constitution to effectively sequester jurors in this case. In support of his motion, Mr. Client states as follows:
1. There can be no more serious duty that a juror ever has to face than the decision between life and death in a capital case.
As the Mississippi Supreme Court has held,
a jury's verdict must be based upon the evidence and not affected by extraneous influences. [This Court has] also repeatedly
recognized the gravity and immeasurable solemnity of a jury's deliberations during the sentencing phase of a capital murder
trial. The importance of this deliberation may at times cause inconvenience and hardship; however, to allow distractions and
outside influences to infect the jury's thoughts at this critical juncture of the proceedings is to devalue human life.
Fuselier v. State, 468 So. 2d 45, 57 (Miss. 1985) (citations omitted).
2. The Code provides that jurors must be sequestered during the trial of a capital case:
A. A jury is sequestered by being kept together in the charge of an officer of the court so as to be secluded from outside
communication, except as permitted by R.S. 18:1307.2.
B. In capital cases, after each juror is sworn he shall be sequestered.
La. Code Cr. Pro. art. 791. In fact, this sequestration should take place before being sworn, keeping those who have been
questioned on voir dire separate from the others. The failure to follow this procedure can be fatal to any resulting verdict. See,
e.g., Holland v. State, 588 So. 2d 543 (Ala. Crim. App. 1991) (error where one venireperson expressed opinion to other
veniremembers before the trial began); Crowell v. Montgomery, 581 So. 2d 1130 (Ala. Crim. App. 1990) (same before
deliberations began).
3. In State v. Parker, 372 So. 2d 1037 (La. 1979), the Court noted that "[t]he purpose of sequestration is to insulate the
jurors from outside influence or the possibility thereof, even unconscious; and, in capital cases especially, the sequestration is
strictly enforced so that, upon a separation of a juror after he is sworn, a presumption of misconduct arises and reversible
error will be presumed." Id. at 1038 (emphasis in original) (condemning unsupervised telephone calls made by the jurors).
4. There are therefore some obvious limitations on what a juror may do during his or her service. For example, the Supreme
Court strongly condemned the trial judge's ex parte interactions with the jury in State v. Copeland, 419 So. 2d 899 (La.
1982), where the judge drank and joked with jurors. See also State v. Brooks, 407 So. 2d 718 (La. 1981) (remanded for
hearing on the improprieties of judge's fraternizing with jurors, as in Copeland, and new trial subsequently granted).
5. There are also some more subtle rules guiding what may and may not influence the decision of a juror. See, e.g., State v.
Johnson, 541 So. 2d 818, 824 (La. 1989) (jurors may not take written materials of any kind back to deliberate; "A juror
must rely upon his memory in reaching a verdict. He shall not be permitted to refer to notes or to have access to any written
evidence" (quoting La. Code Cr. Pro. art. 793)).
6. Some intolerable opportunities for prejudice seem to occur in almost every capital case, and this Court should take careful
measures to avoid them. For example, in motels jurors are sometimes exposed to television and radio programs which can be
devastating. Careful measures must be taken to avoid this.
7. While on the subject of motels, it would be improper--both in light of the classic procedural rights of the accused, and the
First Amendment rights of all concerned--for the jury to base their verdict even in part on the teachings of the Christian Bible.
In Jones v. Kemp, 706 F. Supp. 1534 (N.D. Ga. 1989), the court considered the jury's consideration of a Christian Bible:
Justice Brennan, while an appellate judge in New Jersey, noted that it is a matter of "elementary principles [that] the jury's
verdict must be obedient to the court's charge and be based solely on legal evidence properly before the jury." For this
reason, the introduction to the jury of extraneous materials or evidence has consistently been held to mandate a new trial.
Id. at 1558 (quoting Palestroni v. Jacobs, 77 A. 2d 183, 10 N.J. Super 266 (1950)). This Court should therefore carefully
prevent access of jurors exclusively to Gideon's Bibles in the motel rooms where they are sequestered.
8. In a case that will go over two or more weekends, sometimes jurors go to church. Again, sometimes the preachers in
church preach sermons that may favor one party or the other. It would be most unfortunate were this to cause the case to get
reversed.
9. The eating habits of jurors also raise cause for concern. Sometimes, jurors are taken to dining facilities which have a history
of racial discrimination, or where the jurors may be exposed to local patrons with strong views. The jurors' badges identifying
them as such may only spur the patron to greater excess. See, e.g., Stockton v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 852 F.2d 740,
743-44 (4th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1071, 109 S. Ct. 1354, 103 L. Ed. 2d 822 (1989) (reversal where jurors
were having a meal and one of the patrons of the restaurant expressed the opinion that they should execute the defendant).
Great care must be taken over dining facilities.
10. These are only a very few of the examples of what may happen in a trial. See also, e.g., Williams v. State, 570 So. 2d
884 (Ala. 1990) (juror visited scene). This Court should take excruciating care to avoid any possibility of jury taint.
WHEREFORE Mr. Client respectfully moves that this Court effectively sequester all jurors prior to and during the trial.
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