Background
Harris was charged in April 2020 with eleven crimes related to cocaine dealing and felon in possession of firearms. His trial began in November 2023 with a thirteen-member jury sworn in and opening instructions concluded on the first day. On the morning of the second day, before trial resumed, a person with no connection to the case attacked one juror in a courthouse bathroom, shoving the juror into a stall and demanding money. The same person then approached a second juror and attempted to steal their watch. The attacker was arrested and criminally charged. Harris witnessed the arrest as he was being brought into the courthouse.
The circuit court found that one juror was “very, very shaken” and declared a mistrial, discharging the entire jury. The court scheduled a new trial for January 2024. Harris subsequently filed a pro se motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds, arguing there was no manifest necessity for the mistrial and that retrying him would violate his constitutional protection against double jeopardy. The circuit court denied the motion, and Harris appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s denial of Harris’s motion to dismiss, holding that the court did not erroneously exercise its discretion by declaring a mistrial based on manifest necessity. The court emphasized that neither party provoked the mistrial—the circumstances arose spontaneously when a third party began attacking people in the courthouse, including two jurors in Harris’s trial.
The court found that proceeding with the trial would have been extremely prejudicial to Harris himself. The two accosted jurors had become crime victims during the trial while serving. Even if only those two jurors were struck, leaving an eleven-person jury, the remaining jurors would likely be tainted because they were assembled together in the jury room while the attacker was arrested and would have learned what happened to their fellow jurors. Additionally, there was insufficient time remaining in the week to empanel a new jury and complete the trial. Under the “manifest necessity” standard governing mistrials, the circuit court’s decision was reasonable, and Harris’s retrial does not violate double jeopardy protections.
Key Takeaways
- Mistrial is permissible when there is “manifest necessity,” and that determination rests within the circuit court’s sound discretion, reviewed for reasonableness under the totality of circumstances.
- A third-party attack on jurors that creates doubt about juror impartiality can constitute manifest necessity for mistrial, even without any action by the prosecution or defense.
- The potential tainting of remaining jurors who witness or learn about attacks on fellow jurors may make striking individual jurors insufficient to cure prejudice.
- A defendant’s acquiescence to a mistrial decision (e.g., silence when the mistrial is discussed, followed by a bail motion request) undermines later double jeopardy arguments on appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies that double jeopardy protections do not shield defendants from retrial when extraordinary circumstances beyond either party’s control force termination of a trial. The court rejected Harris’s argument that the prosecution sought an “escape” to locate additional witnesses, finding no record support for that claim. The holding recognizes that maintaining jury integrity and fairness to the defendant himself sometimes requires declaring a mistrial, even though retrial follows.
The opinion also underscores that courts have discretion to protect juror welfare when unforeseen third-party violence occurs in the courthouse, and that the psychological impact on jurors and the resulting prejudicial atmosphere justify mistrial even when no party is at fault. For practitioners, this case reinforces that manifest necessity is a flexible doctrine responsive to genuinely extraordinary circumstances.