Stephen D. Herndon, Esq.
Wheeling, West Virginia
Attorney for the Appellant
Mario J. Palumbo, Esq.
Attorney General
Teresa A. Tarr, Esq.
Senior Assistant Attorney General
Charleston, West Virginia
Attorneys for the Appellee
The Opinion of the Court was delivered PER CURIAM.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
"A criminal defendant has the right under the Due Process
Clause of our State and Federal Constitutions not to be forced to
trial in identifiable prison attire." Syllabus Point 2, in part,
State ex rel. McMannis v. Mohn, 163 W. Va. 129, 254 S.E.2d 805
(1979), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 831 (1983).
Per Curiam:
Mark Rood appeals a jury verdict in the Circuit Court of
Ohio County that found him guilty of breaking and entering. On
appeal Mr. Rood maintains that his conviction should be set aside
because during the trial he wore prison attire. Although the State
may not compel a criminal defendant to wear prison attire at trial,
in this case the record demonstrates that Mr. Rood's right to a
fair trial was not compromised, and, therefore, we affirm the
conviction because the error was harmless.
On November 18, 1989, at about 10:00 p.m., two police
officers saw a car with an open trunk backed up to a broken window
at the rear of the Wheeling Springs Service Company. Mr. Rood and
another man were standing at the rear of the car, but as the
officers approached the car, Mr. Rood got into the right rear seat
and the other man got into the passenger seat and slid over to the
driver's seat. The trunk of the car was left open. Mr. Rood told
the officers that he and his friend were changing the left front
tire.See footnote 1 A floor jack was partially under the right rear of the
car.See footnote 2 However, the base of the floor jack was missing.
A third man was found inside the Wheeling Springs
building crouching behind a vehicle. The floor jack belonged to
Wheeling Springs and had been inside the building when the business
closed for the day. The floor jack's base was still in its usual
place in the east side of the building. The broken window outside
of which the floor jack was found is on the west side of the
building.
At trial the State presented testimony from the two
police officers, the president of Wheeling Springs, an employee of
Wheeling Springs and the owner of the tow company. The defense
cross-examined each of the State's witnesses and, then, elected to
rest at the conclusion of the State's case.
At the time of his trial for breaking and entering, Mr.
Rood was held in the Brooke County Jail on unrelated charges. On
the day before trial, Mr. Rood's lawyer telephoned him to make sure
he had civilian clothing. However, because of an apparent mix-upSee footnote 3
Mr. Rood appeared for trial in prison attire, a green shirt and a
green pair of pants.See footnote 4 After some delay while Mr. Rood's lawyer
unsuccessfully tried to get him civilian clothes, the trial
proceeded with Mr. Rood wearing prison attire.
The trial court was concerned about Mr. Rood's prison
attire. In addition to delaying trial, at the beginning of the
trial the trial court proffered a cautionary instruction to the
jury that Mr. Rood's attire should not influence in any manner the
decision and, after the cautionary instruction, the jurors
indicated that they could reach a fair decision regardless of Mr.
Rood's clothing.
Mr. Rood maintains that after the cautionary instruction
his lawyer objected to the continuation of the trial because of Mr.
Rood's attire. Although the court reporter lost the minutes,
stenographic tapes and audiotapes of some portions of the trial,
the majority of the lost portions were reconstructed by the
parties. However the parties were unable to reconstruct the exact
wording of the cautionary instruction and Mr. Rood's objection.
This Court has firmly established that "[a] criminal
defendant has the right under the Due Process Clause of our State
and Federal Constitutions not to be forced to trial in identifiable
prison attire." Syllabus Point 2, in part, State ex rel. McMannis
v. Mohn, 163 W. Va. 129, 254 S.E.2d 805 (1979).See footnote 5 The defendant in
McMannis was tried for an offense that was committed while he was
incarcerated and the defense "did not object to this attire until
after he had examined the first defense witness and had called his
second witness. . . ." McMannis, id. at 131-32, 254 S.E.2d at 807.
Because no initial objection was made and the offense was prison
connected, we refused to reverse Mr. McMannis' conviction because
the error was "not prejudicial under the doctrine of harmless
constitutional error." McMannis, id. at 135, 254 S.E.2d at 808.
Our holding in McMannis was based on Estelle v. Williams,
425 U.S. 501 (1976), which held that the State may not compel a
criminal defendant to wear prison attire at his trial, because of
the impact of the defendant's appearance in prison attire on the
presumption of innocence, which "is a basic component of a fair
trial under our system of criminal justice." 425 U. S. at 503.
However "[a]fter setting the issue on the constitutional pedestal,
the Court indicated that it was not a fundamental right such that
a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right must be shown. . . ."
McMannis, supra at 133, 254 S.E.2d at 807. Because in Estelle "no
objection was made to the trial judge concerning the jail attire"
(425 U.S. at 509-10), the Supreme Court held that the failure to
object "is sufficient to negate the presence of compulsion
necessary to establish a constitutional violation." 425 U.S. at
513.See footnote 6
Based on Estelle several courts, similar to our holding
in McMannis, have refused to adopt a per se rule that appearing in
prison attire is prejudicial but have reviewed each case to
determine if the prison attire was prejudicial. See Boswell v.
State of Alabama, 537 F.2d 100, 104 (5th Cir. 1976)(finding
harmless error because the record contained no possible inference
"which clouds or conflicts any essential or material fact");
Haggard v. State of Alabama, 550 F.2d 1019 (5th Cir. 1977)(finding
inconclusive evidence to prove that the defendant was tried in
prison garb and handcuffs); Mitchell v. Engle, 634 F.2d 353 (6th
Cir. 1980)(overwhelming evidence of guilt made any error of wearing
jail clothing at trial harmless beyond a reasonable doubt); Jeffers
v. Ricketts, 627 F. Supp. 1334 (D. Ariz. 1986), aff'd in part and
rev'd in part on other grounds, 832 F.2d 476 (9th Cir. 1987), rev'd
on other grounds, 497 U.S. 764 (1990) (defendant's appearance in
jail attire for one day did not impermissibly interfere with his
presumption of innocence); Fernandez v. United States, 375 A.2d 484
(D.C. 1977) (finding overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt
made appearance in prison garb harmless). Compare United States v.
Harris, 703 F.2d 508 (11th Cir. 1983) (finding the government's
case is not overwhelming and, therefore, defendant's appearance in
prison garb was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt).
In the present case, there is no evidence that the State
compelled Mr. Rood to stand trial in prison attire. Although on
appeal Mr. Rood alleges that the Brooke County correctional
officers refused to allow him to dress in his civilian clothes, the
allegation was not made at trial. After Mr. Rood appeared for his
trial in prison attire, the trial judge delayed the trial in order
to allow Mr. Rood to get civilian clothes. If the trial judge had
been told that Mr. Rood had civilian clothes at the Brooke County
jail, which would have delayed proceedings for about 20 minutes,
the judge said "a suggestion would be made to go to Brooke County
to get that clothing."
After the effort to get civilian clothing failed, the
trial judge then gave the jury a cautionary instruction to
disregard the prison attire and the jury indicated that they could
fairly decide the case.See footnote 7 In his opening statement, Mr. Rood's
counsel acknowledged that the trial judge "properly
instructed . . . [the jury that] the defendant has no burden."
Assuming that the error remained uncorrected by the trial
judge's efforts, all the facts point to Mr. Rood's guilt. The
police officers found Mr. Rood outside a broken window with a jack
that had been inside the building when the business closed.
Another man was found inside the building and none of the tires on
the car parked outside the window needed air. Mr. Rood's counsel
vigorously cross-examined each witness and none wavered in his
testimony. Based on the overwhelming evidence of Mr. Rood's guilt,
we find that Mr. Rood's prison attire could not have adversely
affected the jury in its deliberation.
For the above stated reasons, the judgement of the
Circuit Court of Ohio County is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Footnote: 1A subsequent inspection of the car's tires by the tow truck owner showed that the tires were "inflated [and] runable [sic]."
Footnote: 2A floor jack is not the type usually found in a car. The jack is about 30 inches long and six inches wide, and weighs about 40 pounds.
Footnote: 3Mr. Rood said that he told the Brooke County correctional officer that he needed his civilian clothes for trial, but the officer said that no trial notice had been received. Mr. Rood had been transported to Ohio County several times for hearings.
Footnote: 4Mr. Rood maintains that the prison attire had the word "jail" on the left front; however, the State disagrees and submitted an affidavit from a Brooke County correctional officer who said that the jail attire had no markings or identifying symbols. Even
without any markings, Mr. Rood's attire was identifiable to the jury as prison clothing.
Footnote: 5In its entirety, Syllabus Point 2, McMannis supra, reads:
A criminal defendant has the right under the
Due Process Clause of our State and Federal
Constitutions not to be forced to trial in
identifiable prison attire. However, where a
criminal defendant is tried in identifiable
prison attire without any initial objection,
and the offense for which he is tried is
prison-related such that the jury necessarily
knows from the evidence that he was in prison
at the time of the commission of the offense,
the error will be deemed not prejudicial under
the doctrine of harmless constitutional error.
Footnote: 6On a related issue of the propriety of trying a defendant in restrains, in Syllabus Point 3, State v. Brewster, 164 W. Va. 173, 261 S.E.2d 77 (1979), we held that "[a] criminal defendant has the right, absent some necessity relating to courtroom security or order, to be tried free of physical restraints." However in State v. Linkous, 177 W. Va. 621, 355 S.E.2d 410 (1987) we refused to find a reversible error because the jury may have seen the defendant in handcuffs for a brief period before the trial.
Footnote: 7On appeal, Mr. Rood argues that because the record does not contain verbatim the cautionary instruction, this Court should presume the instruction to be inadequate. However nothing in the record justifies such a presumption. The record indicates that the jury was fully instructed on the burden of proof and the presumption of innocence. See Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 95 (1954) ("Our theory of trial relies upon the ability of a jury to follow instructions").
Mr. Rood also questions the adequacy of the record because certain portions were lost. Specifically Mr. Rood maintains that two germane portions are missing from the record: the trial court knowledge of the presence of Mr. Rood's civilian clothes in Brooke County and the wording of the cautionary instruction. However the missing portions were reconstructed and the majority of the record was transcribed. Finally Mr. Rood waived the issue when he elected to appeal based on the reconstructed record. See State ex rel. Kisner v. Fox, 165 W. Va. 123, 124, 267 S.E.2d 451, 454 (1980) (directing the defendant to "make his election within thirty days after being informed that a transcript is unavailable"); Syllabus Point 5, State v. Bolling, 162 W. Va. 103, 246 S.E.2d 631 (1978)("failure to report all of the proceeding may not in all instances constitute reversible error" and defendant has the burden of showing "[s]ome identifiable error or prejudice" 162 W. Va. 115, 246 S.E.2d at 638).