Thomas v. Whitworth , 136 F.3d 756 ( 1998 )

[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 96-8482
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 93-CV-22
ALBERT G. THOMAS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
BOBBY R. WHITWORTH;
LANSON NEWSOME; ALLEN L.
AULT; TONY TURPIN,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
_________________________
(March 5, 1998)
Before TJOFLAT, BIRCH and MARCUS*, Circuit Judges.
*Honorable Stanley Marcus was a U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of Florida sitting by
designation as a member of this panel when this appeal was argued and taken under submission.
On November 24, 1997 he took the oath of office as a United States Circuit Judge of the Eleventh
Circuit.
MARCUS, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff-Appellant Albert Thomas filed this lawsuit seeking
damages and injunctive relief for alleged civil rights violations
and other allegedly unlawful acts by the Defendant-Appellees.
After the completion of discovery, the case was set for jury trial
before the presiding district court judge. Over Thomas's
objection, a United States Magistrate Judge supervised the jury
selection process and selected a panel of jurors to hear the case.
That jury eventually returned a verdict in favor of the Defendants.
In this appeal, Thomas argues that a magistrate judge cannot
preside over the jury selection process in a civil action where one
of the parties has indicated his objection to this practice and
unequivocally stated his desire to have the entire lawsuit tried
before a district judge. Thomas also suggests that, under these
circumstances, a new trial must be provided, since his inability to
pinpoint any tangible prejudice flowing from the magistrate judge's
supervision of voir dire does not make the error harmless. For the
reasons stated below, we agree that a new trial is warranted.
I.
Thomas is a prisoner in a Georgia state penitentiary. On June
29, 1992, he filed a 38-page pro se complaint against Appellees
Whitworth, Newsome and Thomas, officials in the Georgia prison
system, seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and other provisions
for a series of alleged civil rights violations relating to his
confinement. Appellee Ault was subsequently added as an additional
Defendant. When the case was trial-ready, the district court, on
January 26, 1996, directed Thomas to indicate, no later than
February 5, 1996, whether he consented to trying the case before a
magistrate judge. On February 2, 1996, Thomas advised the district
2
court that he did not consent to a magistrate judge trial.
Nevertheless, on February 22, 1996, the case was called for jury
selection by the appointed magistrate judge, in accordance with the
district judge's wishes.1 Before the selection process got
underway, Thomas reiterated his objection during a sidebar colloquy
with the magistrate judge:
MAGISTRATE: You know you've got a right to
have your case heard by a District Court
Judge, and have a District Court Judge try
your case?
THOMAS: Yes, sir.
MAGISTRATE: You've also got a right to have a
District Court Judge preside over jury
selection in your case. . . . Now, you've got
a right to have him preside over everything,
including jury selection . . . [I]f you have
any objection to me presiding over the jury
selection, then we will not select the jury on
this case today, and Judge Moore will have to
schedule the trial at a later time when he can
come and have a jury selected and try the case
then.
THOMAS: I'd like for Judge Moore to handle
the whole proceeding.
MAGISTRATE: You want him to handle the whole
proceeding?
THOMAS: Yes, sir.
MAGISTRATE: So you do not agree for me to
preside over the jury selection?
THOMAS: No, sir.
At the conclusion of this sidebar conversation, the magistrate
judge supervised the jury selection process in several other
lawsuits. Disregarding Thomas's objection, he then proceeded with
jury selection in the case at bar. The magistrate judge approved
1
It appears from the record that the magistrate
judge was in the course of presiding over jury
selection in several pro se prisoner cases.
3
a panel of jurors to hear the case, and sent the panel home,
advising them to contact the Clerk of Court concerning their duty
to report for jury service on March 19, 1996, the anticipated date
of trial.
On March 6, 1996, Thomas filed with the district court an
application entitled "Plaintiff's Objections to Magistrate Judge
Selection of Jury on February 22, 1996." Thomas did not suggest
that the magistrate judge conducted the selection process
improperly; nor did he interpose an objection to the composition of
the panel. Rather, he argued that he did not consent to the
magistrate judge's supervision of the voir dire, and therefore a
"new jury should be [s]elected by a judge." The district judge
denied this motion in an order dated March 6th, stating that he was
"satisfied that the jury selection was properly designated to and
conducted by [the] Magistrate." The trial commenced on March 19,
1996. At the start of trial, Thomas orally renewed his objection
to the magistrate judge's supervision of the jury selection
process. Thomas also requested that the jury be dismissed and the
case be tried to the court, although the district judge denied this
application based on the Appellees' unwillingness to consent to a
non-jury trial. The jury was sworn, the trial began and a verdict
in favor of the Appellees was returned two days later. The verdict
was reduced to judgment on March 21, 1996. Thomas moved for a new
trial on March 29, 1996, restating his objection to the district
court's use of a magistrate judge to supervise jury selection. The
motion was denied in an order dated April 5, 1996. Thomas filed a
notice of appeal on April 17, 1996. He has been supplied with
counsel for the sole purpose of addressing the propriety of the
magistrate judge's handling of the jury selection process.
4
II.
This appeal raises questions of law that must be examined de
novo. The first issue for review requires us to ask if a
magistrate judge may preside over jury selection in a civil case
despite the properly preserved objection of one of the parties.
Magistrate judges do not share the privileges or exercise the
authority of judges appointed under Article III of the United
States Constitution; rather, magistrate judges draw their authority
entirely from an exercise of Congressional power under Article I of
the Constitution. Consequently, magistrate judges may not act
contrary to the limitations prescribed by the national legislature.
See, e.g., NLRB v. A-Plus Roofing, Inc. , 39 F.3d 1410, 1415 (9th
Cir. 1994) (stating that "federal magistrates are creatures of
statute, and so is their jurisdiction. [Courts] cannot augment it
[and] cannot ask them to do something Congress has not authorized
them to do"). The jurisdiction and duties of federal magistrate
judges are outlined principally in section 636 of Title 28 of the
United States Code. The statute, among other things, grants
district judges the authority to assign certain pre-trial matters
to the appropriate magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1).
Section 636(b)(3) also permits a district judge to assign to a
magistrate, with or without the consent of the parties, "such
additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and
laws of the United States."
The statute does not afford magistrate judges the right to
preside over trials (except for the trial of misdemeanor criminal
offenses in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §3401). Section 636(c) does
permit a district judge to designate a magistrate judge to "conduct
any or all proceedings in a jury or nonjury civil matter," but only
5
"[u]pon the consent of the parties." See Hall v. Sharpe, 812 F.2d
644, 646-47 (11th Cir. 1987) (observing that section 636(c)
authorizes a magistrate judge to conduct civil jury trials, but
stressing that "[e]xplicit, voluntary consent is crucial to this
procedure" in order to obviate concerns about constitutionality and
protect against the wholesale delegation of certain classes of
cases and litigants); see also Fowler v. Jones, 899 F.2d 1088, 1092
(11th Cir. 1990) (adding that "'valid consent is the linchpin of 28
U.S.C. §636(c)'") (citation omitted). The plain language of the
statute establishes that if one of the parties in a civil lawsuit
pending before a district court states his unwillingness to consent
to a trial before a magistrate judge, the district court cannot
designate a magistrate judge to preside over the trial.
The question becomes, therefore, whether the jury selection
process can be parsed from other aspects of a trial, bringing the
process of selecting a jury within the "additional duties" clause
of section 636(b)(3). In Gomez v. United States, 490 U.S. 858, 109
S. Ct. 2237, 104 L. Ed. 2d 923 (1989), the United States Supreme
Court held that the "additional duties" clause does not encompass
the selection of a jury in a felony trial where the defendant has
refused to consent to the magistrate's exercise of power. The
Court emphasized that voir dire is a "critical stage of the
criminal proceeding," and specifically rejected the notion that
Congress did not consider voir dire to be part of trial. 490 U.S.
at 873, 109 S. Ct. at 2246-47. Thus, "[t]he absence of a specific
reference to jury selection in the statute, or indeed, in the
legislative history, persuades us that Congress did not intend the
additional duties clause to embrace this function." 490 U.S. at
875-76, 109 S. Ct. at 2248. In Peretz v. United States, 501 U.S.
6
923, 111 S. Ct. 2661, 115 L. Ed. 2d 808 (1991), the Supreme Court
held that the statute's "additional duties" clause constitutionally
permits a magistrate judge to supervise jury selection in a felony
trial where the parties state their consent. In so holding,
however, Peretz reaffirmed the reasoning in Gomez, and added that,
where consent is lacking, courts should be reluctant "to construe
the additional duties clause to include responsibilities of far
greater importance than the specified duties assigned to
magistrates." 501 U.S. at 933, 111 S. Ct. at 2667. The principles
adopted in these cases have been applied in this Circuit. See
Grassi v. United States , 937 F.2d 578, 579 (11th Cir. 1991) (per
curiam) (acknowledging that, in Gomez, the Supreme Court held that
magistrates are not authorized to preside over jury selection in
felony cases without a defendant's consent, but finding no error
since all parties consented to the magistrate's exercise of this
authority).
Relying on Gomez, two of our sister Circuits have held, we
think correctly, that a magistrate judge is not empowered to
conduct the voir dire in a civil jury trial over the objection of
one or more of the parties. The Seventh Circuit, inOlympia Hotels
Corp. v. Johnson Wax Development Corp., 908 F.2d 1363 (7th Cir.
1990), observed that section 636 does not expressly authorize
magistrate judges to try cases (civil or criminal), and added that
reading the "additional duties" clause to encompass some or all of
a jury trial would render meaningless other language in the
statute. Id. at 1368 (stating that there "would [not] be much
point to the elaborate provisions in section 636(c) for the conduct
of civil trials (including jury trials) by a magistrate with the
consent of both parties if a district judge could compel the
7
parties, against their wishes, to submit to a magistrate's
conducting vital stages in the trial, such as voir dire of the
jury"). Moreover, remarked the court, it is unsound to suggest
that voir dire is no more essential, and no less an opportunity for
delegation, than pre-trial discovery, which section 636 authorizes
magistrates to supervise without the parties' consent:
We are doubtful whether these are symmetrical
exercises of judicial power. Pretrial
discovery is conducted largely by the parties
on their own, and of course out of court;
judicial supervision is minimal. The voir
dire, in contrast, is a vital stage of every
jury trial. It is the jurors' first encounter
with the court; and the presence of the judge
who will preside at trial helps impress on the
jurors the gravity of their mission. It is
also the judge's best opportunity to "size up"
the jury, because it will probably be the only
occasion on which any of the juror's speak in
the judge's presence. Sizing up the jury is
important to the judge's rulings on
evidentiary questions, on motions for
mistrials and new trials, and on other matters
requiring an assessment of the particular
juror's ability and attentiveness; on these
questions we defer broadly to the trial
judge's judgment, in part because of his
superior opportunity to evaluate the jurors.
The trial is diminished when different
judicial officers preside at the voir dire and
at the presentation of evidence; the pretrial,
much less so.
Id. at 1369 (citation omitted). Subsequently, in Stockler v.
Garratt, 974 F.2d 730 (6th Cir. 1992), the Sixth Circuit agreed
with the reasoning in Olympia Hotel, finding that under the statute
"jury selection in a civil trial is not one of the additional
supervisory duties which can be delegated to a magistrate . . .
without the consent of the parties." Id. at 732. Thus, "in the
present case, it was error for the district court to allow a
magistrate to conduct voir dire over the objection of [the
plaintiff]." Id. These opinions reinforce what the statute should
make plain: Section 636 does not permit magistrate judges, under
8
the guise of the "additional duties" clause, to conduct the jury
selection portion of a civil trial unless the parties have given
their consent.
III.
Since there can be no quarrel with Thomas's claim that he
refused to give his express, voluntary consent in this case, we
turn to the issue of harmless error. Although the test for
harmless error varies somewhat with the context, generally it
connotes error that has little or no impact on the affected party's
substantive rights. See, e.g., Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18,
24, 87 S. Ct. 824, 828, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705 (1967) (holding that
certain federal constitutional errors may not require reversal of
a criminal conviction if shown to be harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt); Williams v. Singletary, 114 F.3d 177, 179-80 (11th Cir.
1997) (per curiam) (noting that a constitutional error at trial is
not harmless if it "'ha[s] substantial and injurious effect or
influence in determining the jury's verdict'") (citation omitted).
The Appellees' brief focuses entirely on this theory. In essence,
the Appellees contend that we need not reach the question of
whether a magistrate judge may preside over jury selection against
the wishes of a party, since any error in this case was harmless.
Specifically, "[T]homas does not offer any indication that he was
affected in any way by the fact that a magistrate presided over the
jury selection process. He points to no ruling by the magistrate
with which he was displeased, nor does he suggest how the jury
which was selected differed from the jury which might have been
selected if the district court judge had presided over the
process." Appellees' Brief, at 3-4.
9
This language appears to be culled directly from the Eleventh
Circuit's decision in United States v. Rodriguez-Suarez, 856 F.2d
135 (11th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1045, 109 S. Ct. 875,
102 L. Ed. 998 (1989). In that case, the defendant was sentenced
for possession with intent to distribute or importation of more
than 500 grams of cocaine. On appeal, he argued, among other
things, that the district court's designation of a magistrate judge
to preside over jury selection violated 28 U.S.C. §636 and Article
III. The court did not reach the question of whether the
magistrate's supervision of the jury selection process was
improper, finding instead that any error which may have occurred
"was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." The court explained that
the defendant did "not offer any indication that he was affected in
any way by the fact that a magistrate presided over the jury
selection process. He points to no ruling by the magistrate with
which he was displeased, nor does he suggest how the jury which was
selected differed from the jury which might have been selected if
the district court judge presided over the process." Id. at 139.
As support for its conclusion, the court cited Chapman.
Rodriguez-Suarez, however, was issued before the Supreme
Court's 1989 opinion in Gomez. That opinion squarely holds that a
magistrate judge may not conduct voir dire in a felony case where
the defendant interposes an objection to this practice. Of more
immediate significance, though, the opinion also disavows the
harmless error analysis applied by this Circuit in Rodriguez-
Suarez. In Gomez, the United States argued that "any error . . .
was harmless because [defendants] allege no specific prejudice as
a result of the Magistrate's conducting the voir dire examination."
Indeed, observed the government, when the case returned to the
10
district court, the defendants declined the judge's offer to review
the magistrate's rulings de novo, and did not challenge the
selection of any particular juror. The Supreme Court nevertheless
found reversible error, offering the following comments:
Among those basic fair trial rights that "'can
never be treated as harmless'" is a
defendant's "right to an impartial
adjudicator, be it judge or jury." Equally
basic is a defendant's right to have all
critical stages of a criminal trial conducted
by a person with jurisdiction to preside.
Thus harmless-error analysis does not apply in
a felony case in which, despite the
defendant's objection and without any
meaningful review by a district judge, an
officer exceeds his jurisdiction by selecting
a jury.
490 U.S. at 876 (citations omitted).
It could be suggested that the harmless error analysis in
Rodriguez-Suarez remains sound, even if the holding itself is no
2
longer good law with respect to felony cases. But Gomez, while
arising in the criminal as opposed to civil context, clearly
signals that a magistrate's supervision of the voir dire process,
in the face of an objection from one of the parties, is not the
stuff of harmless error. Arguably the criminal context differs
somewhat, since the constitutional rights granted criminal
defendants are more expansive than those ordinarily accorded civil
litigants. The underlying point is the same, though: it can never
be genuinely "harmless" for a litigant, over his objection, to be
compelled to try some or all his case before a non-Article III
judicial officer not entitled to exercise the power of an Article
III judge.
2
It is unclear from the text of Rodriguez-Suarez whether the
defendant in that case agreed to the magistrate's supervision of
the jury selection process. To the extent the defendant gave his
consent, of course, the opinion lends even less weight to the
Appellees' position here. See, e.g., Peretz.
11
Rodriguez-Suarez was issued before the Sixth and Seventh
Circuits, drawing largely on Gomez, applied the reasoning of that
opinion to civil lawsuits. In Olympia Hotel, the Seventh Circuit
rejected a harmless error argument in the context of a civil
lawsuit, stating that although the affected party made no effort to
show how it was harmed by the magistrate judge's actual handling of
the voir dire, "issues of entitlement to a particular kind of
tribunal are in general not subject to the harmless error rule."
908 F.2d at 1369. The Sixth Circuit in Stockler reached the same
conclusion, explaining "we do not believe that if a party in a
civil action explicitly objects to having a magistrate conduct voir
dire and the court consciously ignores this objection . . . it can
be considered harmless error." 974 F.2d at 733. Otherwise, said
the court, district judges and magistrates could "ignore the
dictates of the [statute] with impunity and force civil litigants
to submit to the jurisdiction of a magistrate without their consent
unless a party could demonstrate exactly how the trial would have
been different if an Article III judge, rather than the magistrate,
had conducted the voir dire." Id. Other courts have recognized
that aspects of the jury selection process may not lend themselves
to harmless error. See, e.g., United States v. Rowe , 106 F.3d
1226, 1229 (5th Cir. 1997) (finding "no need to show specific
prejudice from a voir dire procedure that cut off meaningful
responses to critical questions" in a case where the district
court's remarks may have chilled prospective jurors from truthfully
answering questions about possible bias). Indeed, there does not
appear to be any post-Gomez case law finding harmless error under
the circumstances presented in this appeal.
12
The Appellees' theory of harmless error raises many
troublesome mechanical questions. To begin with, their reasoning
conceivably could be used to justify a magistrate judge's decision
to preside over not just jury selection, but an entire civil trial.
The jury selection process cannot be deemed merely an ancillary or
preliminary phase of a trial; it is every bit as much a part of the
trial as the opening statement, the examination of witnesses and
the charging of the jury. See Gomez, 490 U.S. at 874-75, 109 S.
Ct. at 2247 (stating that "[f]ar from an administrative empanelment
process, voir dire represents jurors' first introduction to the
substantive factual and legal issues in a case"); Olympia Hotel,
908 F.2d at 1369; see also FDIC v. LeGrand, 43 F.3d 163, 167 (5th
Cir. 1995) (distinguishing Gomez and its progeny, in the course of
upholding a magistrate's ability to enter a postjudgment discovery
order, by highlighting "the critical nature of voir dire and its
potentiality for affecting the outcome of a trial"). Moreover, it
is unclear precisely what kind of showing a party like Thomas must
make in order to establish that the error is "harmful." For the
Appellees' theory to make analytic sense, a party like Thomas
presumably must do more than simply articulate one or more rulings
by the magistrate judge with which he is "displeased." Rather, he
must show that somehow the overall result (or at least a discrete
ruling) would have been materially different if the challenged
portion of the case had been supervised by the district court.
This requirement imposes an inordinate, if not impossible, burden
on a non-consenting party, and misapprehends the nature of the harm
under these circumstances.
In any event, as the Seventh Circuit suggests, there may well
be a real measure of harm to the entire trial process when a
13
district judge absents himself from the voir dire stage, at least
where the parties have not expressly and voluntarily indicated
their consent. The credibility evaluation required in response to
the argument that preemptory challenges have been exercised for
unlawful discriminatory reasons, see, e.g., United States v.
Tokars, 95 F.3d 1520 (11th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 117
S. Ct. 1282, 137 L. Ed. 2d 357 and — U.S. —, 117 S. Ct. 138 (1997),
may inform the district court's resolution of evidentiary issues
during the remainder of the trial. The converse may also be true;
a district court may need to rethink credibility determinations
made during jury selection in light of subsequent events suggesting
discriminatory intent. Similarly, having supervised the jury
selection process and observed the behavior of panel members during
the voir dire, the district court may be better positioned to
respond appropriately when issues concerning juror misconduct arise
during the course of trial. In these and other situations, the
district judge's absence from the voir dire conceivably may impact
his ability to preside effectively over other aspects of the trial.
See Gomez, 490 U.S. at 874-75, 109 S. Ct. at 2247-48 (indicating
"serious doubts" about the ability of district judges simply to
acquaint themselves with the jury selection process based on
written transcripts, since "no transcript can recapture the
atmosphere of the voir dire, which may persist throughout the
trial"). Admittedly these concerns may be relevant even where both
parties supply their consent. But the absence of mutual consent
suggests that at least one litigant, having contemplated the
advantages and disadvantages of this practice, is not prepared to
ignore his concerns for the trial in which he is a participant.
Cf. Peretz, 501 U.S. at 936 n.12, 111 S. Ct. at 2669 n.12
14
(reiterating that jury selection is an "important function" that
may warrant the participation of the district judge, but adding
that counsel can "sensibly balance these considerations against
other concerns in deciding whether to object to a magistrate's
supervision of voir dire"). More to the point, Congress, by
permitting district courts to assign to magistrate judges "all
proceedings in a jury or nonjury civil matter" with the consent of
the parties, has implicitly concluded that any detriment to the
trial process that might result if the presiding district judge
delegates jury selection to a magistrate is mitigated if the
parties agree to this procedure.
A useful analogy can be drawn by examining the Appellees'
harmless error argument in the context of the statutory limits on
federal subject matter jurisdiction under Article III. Suppose a
district court found, despite a defendant's objection, that it
could exercise diversity jurisdiction over a civil lawsuit even
though it recognized that the amount in controversy fell below the
statutory minimum set by 28 U.S.C. §1332. There is no case law in
this, or any other, Circuit suggesting that the district court's
jurisdictional ruling could be overlooked as "harmless" on appeal
simply upon a showing that, in all other respects, the district
court's resolution of the case was thoroughly error-free. The
essence of the harm in this situation is the fact that the lawsuit
was entertained by a tribunal that, according to Congress, had no
power to entertain the dispute. The same reasoning applies here;
the harm to Appellant Thomas flows not from the adequacy or
inadequacy of the magistrate judge's handling of the jury selection
process, but rather from the fact that Congress did not afford
magistrate judges the power to preside over any aspect of the trial
15
of a civil lawsuit without the express consent of the parties (and
certainly not in the face of repeated and unequivocal objection
from a plaintiff). The statute expressly permits litigants like
Thomas to insist on having an entire trial take place before a
United States District Judge; adopting the Appellees' harmless
error argument saps this statutory language of meaning, and
significantly undermines the right of a federal court litigant to
have his case tried before a judge who has been appointed by the
President and is afforded the constitutional protection of Article
III.3 Consequently, the concept of harmless error cannot be used
to sustain the underlying judgment, since that judgment was
rendered by a jury whose selection was supervised by a magistrate
judge who lacked the statutory authority to undertake the task
assigned to him by the district court.
For all of the foregoing reasons, the district court's denial
of the Appellant's new trial motion must be and is REVERSED. The
judgment is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
3
Having concluded that the magistrate judge
exceeded his statutorily-created authority by
conducting jury selection in this case without the
consent of the parties, we need not and do not address
any constitutional implications of this practice.
16
17