Harris v. State

Shalita Jackson Harris, a school bus driver, was convicted of homicide by vehicle in the first degree after a crash killed a student passenger. After the trial, Harris learned that during deliberations some jurors had searched online for the difference between 'first degree' and 'second degree' charges and shared what they found with other jurors. She asked for a new trial, arguing this outside research tainted the verdict. The trial court held a hearing where all 12 jurors testified, then denied Harris's motion, and the Court of Appeals of Georgia agreed. The Supreme Court of Georgia took up the case to decide whether the lower courts judged the harm from this juror research correctly. The court found that both lower courts got the legal rules wrong: the trial court failed to presume the misconduct was harmful, and the Court of Appeals wrongly assumed that sentencing information could never prejudice a verdict. The court sent the case back for a proper review.

A finding of juror misconduct, including jurors researching sentencing distinctions online during deliberations, triggers a presumption of prejudice that the State must rebut beyond a reasonable doubt; courts may not treat extrajudicial sentencing information as categorically incapable of causing prejudice, and Georgia's juror-testimony evidence rule does not eliminate this presumption.

The ruling affects every Georgia criminal trial where jurors might independently research sentencing during deliberations. It reinforces that courts must presume harm from such misconduct and requires prosecutors to disprove harm beyond a reasonable doubt, protecting the long-standing separation between guilt determinations and punishment.

Vacated and remanded with direction

1. Georgia law has long held that when jurors engage in misconduct, such as researching outside information during deliberations, courts must presume the misconduct harmed the defendant, and the State bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that no harm occurred.
2. The trial court wrongly concluded that Georgia's juror-testimony evidence rule (OCGA § 24-6-606(b)), which limits what jurors can testify about regarding deliberations, eliminated this presumption of prejudice; the rule only restricts what evidence courts may consider, it does not change the underlying legal standard for judging harm.
3. The trial court also applied the wrong standard of proof, asking whether there was a 'reasonable probability' of harm (the test for ordinary errors) instead of the tougher 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard required for constitutional errors like juror misconduct.
4. The Court of Appeals correctly identified the presumption of prejudice and the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, but wrongly ruled as a matter of law that extrajudicial information about sentencing severity, as opposed to information about the underlying crime or evidence, could never be prejudicial.
5. This blanket rule conflicted with a prior decision, Beck v. State, which sent a similar sentencing-information juror-misconduct claim back for further review, and with decades of Georgia law and jury instructions barring jurors from considering punishment when deciding guilt or innocence.
6. Because both lower courts used flawed legal standards, the Supreme Court of Georgia could not simply approve or reject the outcome and instead sent the case back so the trial court could reassess prejudice under the correct rules.

• juror misconduct
• homicide by vehicle
• school bus crash
• jury deliberations
• new trial motion