2008-M-096              State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Harry J. Evans, Appellant.

MAJORITY:  After a jury trial in Ramsey County District Court, appellant Harry J. Evans was found guilty and convicted of first-degree murder.  Evans appealed to this court, making a number of arguments, including a claim that his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury was violated because the district court failed to investigate a telephone caller's tip that a juror was racially biased. 

Because the record did not include adequate information about the telephone caller's tip and because of our concern about the potential for juror bias, we retained jurisdiction and remanded to the district court with instructions to release the information about the telephone caller to the parties so that they could conduct an investigation and, if warranted, move for additional proceedings on the issue of juror bias. 

After remand, the defendant conducted an investigation and moved for a Schwartz1 hearing.  The district court granted the motion, conducted the hearing, and denied Evans' motion for a new trial.  The case has now returned to us with a complete record related to the telephone caller's tip and the proceedings that took place after remand.  After a careful review of  the record related to this issue, as well as all of the other issues that Evans has raised on appeal, we affirm.  This case arises from the death of St. Paul Police Sergeant Gerald Vick.

DISSENT:  Justice Page opined:  I respectfully dissent.  I do so because the court today fails to recognize that the rationale behind the prohibition against post-verdict communication between attorneys and jurors before a Schwartz hearing has been granted, as well as the prohibition itself, applies with equal force after a hearing has been granted.  In Schwartz v. Minneapolis Suburban Bus Co., 258 Minn. 325, 104 N.W.2d 301 (1960), we held that it was improper for litigants to have post-verdict contact with jurors for purposes of attaining information to be used to impeach the verdict.  Schwartz involved a defeated litigant in a civil matter whose counsel had contacted a juror without permission from the trial court for the purpose of ascertaining whether the juror had been untruthful during voir dire.

Barry Anderson ( Paul Anderson, Meyer, and Gildea)

               Dissent:  Page

Took no part:  Magnuson and Dietzen

 [MURDER}