Burks v. the StateBurks v. the State
Notes
The charge largely mirrored the 2016 pattern jury charge, as the court instructed the jury:
And at this time, I‘m going to remind you that your verdict must be unanimous. You have been deliberating this case for a considerable length of time and I do deem it proper to give you further instruction regarding the desirability of agreement if possible.
This case has been exhaustively and carefully tried by both sides. It has been submitted to you for decision and a verdict if possible rather than for disagreement. It is the law that a unanimous verdict is required. While this verdict must be the conclusion of each juror and not a mere acquiescence in order to reach an agreement, it is still necessary for all of the jurors to examine the issues and the questions submitted with candor and fairness and with a proper regard for and deference to the opinion of the other jurors.
Each juror should listen to the arguments of the other jurors with a disposition to be convinced by them. If you differ in your views of the evidence, such difference of opinion should cause you to scrutinize the evidence more closely and to re-examine the grounds for your own opinion.
Your duty is to decide the issues of fact that have been submitted to you if you can do so conscientiously. In conferring, you should lay aside all mere pride of opinion and you should bear in mind that the jury room is no place to champion either side of a cause. As jurors, you should not be advocates. The aim to keep in mind is the truth as it appears from the evidence examined in light of the [c]ourt‘s instructions.
You will again retire to your jury room to resume your deliberations and examine your differences in a spirit of fairness and try to arrive at a verdict.
At one point during deliberations, the trial court suggested that it may not be appropriate for the parties to know the breakdown of the votes, and Burks agreed, arguing that “one reason that we don‘t engage in those discussions is because we have to make other decisions as far as moving for a mistrial, partial verdict, dismissing jurors for cause or, you know, anything that comes up. And that information would influence some of those decisions.”
Even though Burks does not raise a claim on appeal about the impropriety of the jury reporting votes or that it was error for the court to reveal the numerical breakdowns of the jurors’ votes, we note that, for the very reason argued during deliberations in his trial, “it would have been much better for the trial court to tell the jurors to stop revealing the nature of their numerical division, … and we again encourage trial judges to inform jurors not to reveal that information.” Smith, 302 Ga. at 722 (quotation marks omitted).
The online news article explained that police had identified Burks as the “15-year-old boy charged” with the deaths, and the online commenter responded that neither Burks nor the other two people charged were men but, rather, were “lower than animals!”
Albeit in a slightly different context than we have here, the Court of Appeals has held that it was reversible error for a co-defendant to take a guilty plea in the presence of the entire jury panel from which the jury was to be selected. See Hayes v. State, 136 Ga. App. 746, 746 (1975). We express no opinion as to the correctness of that holding.