In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 13‐2055
RICHARD M. SMEGO,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
ANITA PAYNE, AMBER JELINEK, and
OKEY NWACHUKWU‐UDAKU,
Defendants‐Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of Illinois.
No. 09‐3177 — Harold A. Baker, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED FEBRUARY 21, 2017 — DECIDED APRIL 12, 2017
____________________
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and ROVNER, Circuit
Judges.
FLAUM, Circuit Judge. Near the end of his jury trial on var‐
ious § 1983 claims, Richard M. Smego was removed from the
courtroom. Various law students who had been appointed to
act as his counsel remained behind. The jury ultimately re‐
turned a verdict in favor of defendants, and one of the law
students declined to poll the jury without consulting Smego.
2 No. 13‐2055
Smego now appeals, arguing that the district court committed
reversible error in removing him from the courtroom, and
that he is entitled to a new trial under our holding in Verser v.
Barfield, 741 F.3d 734 (7th Cir. 2013), because he was deprived
of his right to poll the jury. For the reasons that follow, we
affirm.
I. Background
A. Factual Background
Smego is a civilly committed sex offender at a treatment
and detention facility in Rushville, Illinois. In 2009, he filed
suit against members of his treatment team: Anita Payne, Am‐
ber Jelinek, and Dr. Okey Nwachukwu‐Udaku. Smego’s law‐
suit alleged that in early 2009, another Rushville resident sex‐
ually assaulted him, and that afterward, defendants forced
Smego to continue group therapy sessions with his alleged
assailant and retaliated against Smego for filing suit. We held
that Smego was entitled to a jury trial on those claims. See
Smego v. Payne, 469 F. App’x 470 (7th Cir. 2012) (hereinafter,
Smego I).
Following our ruling in Smego I, at a hearing that Smego
attended by video conference, the district court offered on its
own motion to appoint students from a University of Illinois
College of Law clinic to act as Smego’s counsel. At a hearing
in May 2012, at which Clinical Law Professor Andrew Be‐
quette and a law student appeared on behalf of the clinic,
Smego agreed to the representation. Professor Bequette never
filed a formal appearance in the case, however, and the May
2012 hearing was the last time that Bequette made an in‐per‐
son appearance at any hearing. Neither his name nor signa‐
ture appeared on any filings in the proceedings below. The
No. 13‐2055 3
only people who entered appearances to represent Smego, or
whose names and signatures appeared on filings, were Uni‐
versity of Illinois law students.
Before trial began, Smego appeared by video conference
or telephone at several hearings. For the three‐day trial itself,
however, Smego appeared in person pursuant to a writ of ha‐
beas corpus ad testificandum. On April 17, 2013, the final day
of trial, during an off‐the‐record break in the proceedings
sometime after closing arguments, the district judge removed
Smego from the courtroom to be transported back to Rush‐
ville. The court did not address this removal on the record and
issued no cautionary instruction to the jury regarding
Smego’s absence from the courtroom. The district court did,
however, instruct the jury that, “Your agreement upon a ver‐
dict must be unanimous. Your verdict must be in writing and
signed by each of you, including the presiding juror.”
The jury was released for deliberations at 2:06 PM, and at
3:30 PM, the jury notified the court that it had reached a ver‐
dict. At 3:43 PM, the jury returned and handed the verdict to
the judge. The district court read, “We, the jury, find in favor
of each of the defendants and against the plaintiff on both of
his claims. All signed by all ten jurors.” Smego was not in the
courtroom when the jury found in favor of defendants.
After the verdict was read, the district judge asked one of
the law students representing Smego whether they wanted
the jury polled, and the student, without consulting Smego,
responded in the negative. The judge then asked the law stu‐
dents if they wished to end their representation of Smego.
They answered affirmatively, and the district court immedi‐
ately granted the motion.
4 No. 13‐2055
B. Procedural Background
Smego filed a notice of appeal the following month. In De‐
cember 2013, after we released our decision in Verser, Smego
moved pro se to correct the record under Federal Rule of Ap‐
pellate Procedure 10,1 to “include and reflect the fact that
Plaintiff was not present for the end of trial including the
reading of the verdict by the jury, the decision not to poll the
jury, or for any part of the trial or proceedings after the Court
signed the Order transporting [Smego] back to the Rushville
Treatment and Detention Facility.” He asserted in his motion
that “before the conclusion of trial and before the Jury re‐
turned from Lunch to receive the case and begin deliberat‐
ing,” the district court had ordered him back to detention.
On July 18, 2014, the district judge entered a text order
granting Smego’s motion “to the extent he seeks confirmation
that, after the closing arguments and the jury was sent to de‐
liberate, the court directed that he be transported back to the
Rushville Treatment and Detention Center.” The order fur‐
ther stated:
1 Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(e)(2) provides:
(2) If anything material to either party is omitted from or
misstated in the record by error or accident, the omission
or misstatement may be corrected and a supplemental
record may be certified and forwarded:
(A) on stipulation of the parties;
(B) by the district court before or after the record
has been forwarded; or
(C) by the court of appeals.
Fed. R. App. P. 10(e)(2).
No. 13‐2055 5
This was the court’s standard practice before
Verser v. Barfield, 741 F.3d 734 (7th Cir. 2013).
However, unlike the plaintiff in Verser, Mr.
Smego was represented during the trial by
counsel, including when the jury verdict was
read. The plaintiff’s counsel declined to have
the jury polled.
Smego initially proceeded pro se on his appeal. After brief‐
ing was complete, however, in an Order dated February 24,
2016, we struck the parties’ briefs, appointed counsel for
Smego, and requested additional briefing on any issue iden‐
tified by counsel. We also specifically requested briefing re‐
garding:
whether the district court’s decision to exclude
the plaintiff from the jury’s reading of the trial
verdict, which is impermissible under Verser v.
Barfield, 741 F.3d 734 (7th Cir. 2013), if a plaintiff
is pro se[,] was permissible in this instance be‐
cause the district court had recruited law stu‐
dents to present the plaintiff’s case at trial.
II. Discussion
We review a district court’s decision to exclude a detained
litigant from his civil trial for abuse of discretion. Perotti v.
Quinones, 790 F.3d 712, 721 (7th Cir. 2015). Abuse of discretion
means a serious error of judgment, such as reliance on a for‐
bidden factor, not considering an essential factor, or use of an
incorrect legal standard. See United States v. Warner, 498 F.3d
666, 680 (7th Cir. 2007); Robyns v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co.,
130 F.3d 1231, 1236 (7th Cir. 1997). “A district court also
abuses its discretion if the record contains no evidence on
6 No. 13‐2055
which the court could have relied or if its findings of fact are
clearly erroneous.” Warner, 498 F.3d at 680 (citation omitted).
In most instances, even if we conclude that a district court
abused its discretion, the error is subject to harmless error re‐
view. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 61 (“Unless justice requires otherwise,
no error … by the court or a party … is ground for granting a
new trial, for setting aside a verdict, or for vacating, modify‐
ing, or otherwise disturbing a judgment or order. At every
stage of the proceeding, the court must disregard all errors
and defects that do not affect any party’s substantial rights.”);
Keaton v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R.R. Co., 321 F.2d 317, 319
n.3 (7th Cir. 1963) (“Courts of Appeals ‘gladly’ follow [Rule
61] as the best practice.” (citing 7 Moore, Fed. Practice 1030
(2d ed. 1955))). However, if an error renders a trial “funda‐
mentally unfair,” Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 577 (1986), or if
the nature of a given ruling is such that a demonstration of
harm is impossible, see Olympia Hotels Corp. v. Johnson Wax
Dev. Corp., 908 F.2d 1363, 1369–70 (7th Cir. 1990) (addressing
ruling allowing magistrate judge to conduct voir dire), the er‐
ror may be subject to automatic reversal.
A. Smego’s removal from the courtroom
As a civilly committed litigant, Smego’s constitutional
right of access to the court in civil cases does not necessarily
require that he be allowed to personally appear at the pro‐
ceedings. Smego acknowledges that a lawfully incarcerated
party’s right of access “is satisfied so long as he has the op‐
portunity to consult with counsel and to present his case to
the court.” Perotti, 790 F.3d at 721; see also Stone v. Morris, 546
F.2d 730, 735 (7th Cir. 1976) (explaining that “the right of ac‐
cess is satisfied” so long as “the inmate and his counsel are
afforded adequate opportunity to confer confidentially and to
No. 13‐2055 7
petition the courts about matters in controversy”) (citation
omitted). That said, “[t]he fact that there is no constitutional
right to be present in a civil action does not sanction the sum‐
mary exclusion of a plaintiff‐prisoner from … trial.” Stone, 546
F.2d at 735. “Rather[,] the trial court must weigh the interest
of the plaintiff in presenting his testimony in person against
the interest of the state in maintaining the confinement of the
plaintiff‐prisoner.” Id. (citation omitted). We have explained
that the district judge should consider a number of factors in
making this determination, including:
the costs and inconvenience of transporting a
prisoner from his place of incarceration to the
courtroom, any potential danger or security risk
which the presence of a particular inmate would
pose to the court, the substantiality of the matter
at issue, the need for an early determination of
the matter, the possibility of delaying trial until
the prisoner is released, the probability of suc‐
cess on the merits, the integrity of the correc‐
tional system, and the interests of the inmate in
presenting his testimony in person rather than
by deposition.
Id. at 735–36 (citation omitted); see also Perotti, 790 F.3d at 721;
Verser, 741 F.3d at 739.
Smego contends that the district court abused its discre‐
tion and committed reversible error by removing him from
the courtroom without cause and without weighing any of the
Stone factors in making the decision (notwithstanding the fact
that a number of those factors seem inapplicable to his case).
See Stone, 546 F.2d at 736 (holding that the record showed the
trial court did not sufficiently consider the relevant factors in
8 No. 13‐2055
concluding that Stone would not be permitted to attend trial).
Defendants respond that the district judge did not need to bal‐
ance the Stone factors here, because, unlike the litigant in
Stone, Smego was present and able to participate in the de‐
fense of his case throughout the evidentiary portion of trial.
As a threshold matter, the parties dispute the timing of
Smego’s removal from the courtroom. If Smego was removed
after the jury was charged and missed only the reading of the
verdict, as the district court’s 2014 order suggests, his removal
could not have prejudiced him with respect to the verdict. If
so, Smego’s claim collapses into his jury‐poll argument,
which we discuss below. If, as Smego maintains, he was re‐
moved prior to the jury being charged, we would likely need
to consider whether his absence during instructions could
have led the jury to harmfully infer that Smego had aban‐
doned his case. What complicates matters here is that Smego’s
removal occurred off the record—the trial transcript does not
indicate when he was removed; nor did the district judge at
any point put on the record the timing or reasons, if any, for
Smego’s removal.
Smego argues that we should accept his consistent asser‐
tion that he was removed from the courtroom before the jury
was instructed. However, his Rule 10 motion falls short of
documenting his position—it said merely that he was not pre‐
sent for the end of trial, and that he was removed “before the
Jury returned from Lunch to receive the case and begin delib‐
erating.” This language does not address when the jury was
charged. Defendants, meanwhile, submit that the district
court already found, in response to Smego’s Rule 10 motion,
that the court directed Smego’s removal from the courtroom
No. 13‐2055 9
only “after the closing arguments and the jury was sent to de‐
liberate.” They also correctly observe that Smego’s motion
presented only his “personal statements and offered no inde‐
pendent evidence, whether from others present, court or de‐
tention facility records, or statements from his counsel, as to
when he was removed from the courtroom.”
Smego responds that the lack of clarity in the record is the
fault of the district court, which failed to comply with the
Court Reporter’s Act requiring verbatim recording of the en‐
tire proceeding. See 28 U.S.C. § 753(b) (“Each session of the
court and every other proceeding designated by rule or order
of the court or by one of the judges shall be recorded verbatim
by shorthand, mechanical means, electronic sound recording,
or any other method … .”). Defendants first respond that
Smego forfeited his objection to any noncompliance with the
Act by failing to raise a contemporaneous objection. How‐
ever, since there is no record of the occasion, this Court cannot
know whether Smego objected or not. It would be unfair to
assume that Smego did not object when the very issue is the
lack of a record of the proceeding. See United States v. Neff,
10 F.3d 1321, 1324 (7th Cir. 1993) (“A complete record would
enable us to determine whether the defendant knowingly and
voluntarily forfeited any objection to the irregularity [of the
district judge’s apparent practice of answering questions from
the deliberating jury off the record and without the defendant
present].”) (citation omitted). Indeed, it is not obvious that
any party was aware at trial that Smego’s removal took place
off the record; and following trial, Smego objected to the
court’s handling of the matter, which seems to be all that was
reasonably feasible under the circumstances.
10 No. 13‐2055
Defendants next argue that the Court Reporter’s Act does
not apply in the case at hand because there was no proceeding
in “open court” after the jury had retired to deliberate.2 How‐
ever, case law from both within and without our Circuit sug‐
gests that the Act applies to off‐the‐record court proceedings
like Smego’s removal hearing. See, e.g., United States v. Nolan,
910 F.2d 1553, 1559 (7th Cir. 1990) (“[W]e agree with those
courts that have applied § 753(b)’s recording requirement to
sidebar discussions … . [T]he reason for requiring courts to
record trial proceedings—to preserve a record for appellate
review—supports applying § 753(b) to sidebars.”) (citation
omitted); United States v. Lawson, 776 F.3d 519, 521 (7th Cir.
2015) (“Nolan[’s] … approach is equally applicable to other
off‐the‐record decisions.”); United States v. Patterson, 23 F.3d
1239, 1254 (7th Cir. 1994) (jury questions “should be answered
in open court and defendant’s counsel should be given an op‐
portunity to be heard before the trial judge responds” (quot‐
ing Rogers v. United States, 422 U.S. 35, 39 (1975))) (internal
quotation marks, brackets, and ellipsis omitted); United States
v. Brumley, 560 F.2d 1268, 1281 (5th Cir. 1977) (“we suggest
that if the trial court needs to confer with counsel about rul‐
ings to be made from the bench[,] the safe course is to excuse
the jury or retire to chambers and let the reporter record what
takes place”); United States v. Robinson, 459 F.2d 1164, 1170
(D.C. Cir. 1972) (per curiam) (proceedings covered by the act
include “voir dire examination of the jury, evidentiary
2 Although defendants suggest in a heading in their brief that the Court
Reporter’s Act did not apply in Smego’s civil proceeding, the Act plainly
requires verbatim recording not only of “all proceedings in criminal cases
had in open court,” but also of “all proceedings in other cases had in open
court unless the parties with the approval of the judge shall agree specifi‐
cally to the contrary.” 28 U.S.C. § 753(b).
No. 13‐2055 11
presentations before the judge or jury, bench conferences, and
arguments of counsel”) (footnote omitted); see also Open Court,
Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) (“A court that is in ses‐
sion, presided over by a judge, attended by the parties and
their attorneys, and engaged in judicial business … . usu. re‐
fers to a proceeding in which formal entries are made on the
record.“).
Yet, as we explained in Nolan, where a district court does
not comply with § 753(b), we are not automatically required
to reverse the court’s judgment. Reversal is warranted “only
if the [aggrieved party] can demonstrate prejudice,” 910 F.2d
at 1560 (citation omitted), and “prejudice occurs only when
the unavailability of a transcript prevents the appellate court
from determining whether there is reversible error,” United
States v. Kimmons, 917 F.2d 1011, 1014 (7th Cir. 1990) (citation
omitted). The normal course for “reconstructing a record” is
to file a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Proce‐
dure 10. See Nolan, 910 F.2d at 1560. That is exactly what
Smego did here, and, in response, the district court clarified
that Smego was removed only after the jury was sent to delib‐
erate. Under this factual scenario, there is no prejudice to
Smego, since the removal would not have affected jury delib‐
erations.
Smego counters that Rule 10 may not always prove “an
adequate device” when “trial participants’ recollections may
be too vague, and notes and other trial materials too sketchy.”
Id. He relatedly contends that we need not be bound by the
district court’s reconstruction of the record if it is unreasona‐
ble. See United States v. Keskey, 863 F.2d 474, 478 (7th Cir. 1988)
(“We must accept the court’s reconstruction of the record un‐
der Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(c) unless it was
12 No. 13‐2055
intentionally falsified or plainly unreasonable.”) (citation
omitted). Smego argues that the fifteen‐month gap between
the trial and the order, together with the lack of explanation
of what sources allowed the district court to fix the time of
Smego’s removal, render Rule 10 an inadequate solution in
this case.
We review the finding of fact in the district court’s text or‐
der for clear error. See Ortiz v. Martinez, 789 F.3d 722, 728 (7th
Cir. 2015) (citing Norinder v. Fuentes, 657 F.3d 526, 533 (7th Cir.
2011)). The district court noted in its order that removing de‐
tained litigants for transfer after the jury was sent to deliber‐
ate was the court’s “standard practice” pre‐Verser.3 We have
previously held that a district court may reference its stand‐
ard practices when reconstructing the record. See Webster v.
United States, 667 F.3d 826, 833 (7th Cir. 2011) (“Although the
lack of a record is unsettling, it does not provide a sufficient
basis to upset the district court’s factual finding. In the end,
the judge’s finding rested heavily on the court’s normal prac‐
tice of dismissing the jury for the day when a juror is absent.
… Because no evidence suggested that the customary practice
was not followed, the judge found that Webster had ’not
proved’ that the jury deliberated on November 29 without the
twelfth juror.”). In this case, as in Webster, “[t]he most that can
be said about th[e] evidence is that it is inconclusive,” which
is not enough to set aside the district court’s finding of fact.
Id. The district court may very well have made a reasonable
3 And indeed, the timing of the defendant’s removal in Verser is consistent
with the district court’s text order. See Verser, 741 F.3d at 737 (“After the
parties finished presenting their evidence and the district court instructed
the jury, the court decided to send Verser back to the prison rather than
keep him in the court‐house to await the verdict … .”).
No. 13‐2055 13
inference based on its normal practice, and “[w]here there are
two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice
between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Id. (citation omit‐
ted).
As the district court’s finding on the timing of Smego’s re‐
moval stands, Stone’s multi‐factor test for removing a party
from the courtroom may not even be necessary. Although
there is arguably some importance in allowing a litigant to be
present during the jury‐instructions phase (in addition to the
evidentiary phases) of trial, if we accept that Smego was not
removed until after instructions, Smego’s interest in being
present in person seems considerably diminished. And im‐
portantly, even assuming an abuse of discretion, Smego can‐
not demonstrate that any error was prejudicial to him. Under
the district court’s timeline, if he was removed only after the
jury was sent to deliberate, then we cannot see how his ab‐
sence could have had any prejudicial impact on the outcome
of the trial, separate and apart from his inability to poll the
jury. There is no evidence in the record that the jury had ques‐
tions during deliberation or had any other occasion to know
that Smego was no longer in the courtroom during delibera‐
tions. Smego’s absence thus could not have affected the delib‐
erations, and his stand‐alone removal claim fails.
B. Waiver of Smego’s right to poll the jury
We now consider the more specific issue of whether
Smego’s removal deprived him of his right to poll the jury,4
4 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 48(c) provides:
After a verdict is returned but before the jury is dis‐
charged, the court must on a party’s request, or may on
its own, poll the jurors individually. If the poll reveals a
14 No. 13‐2055
such that he is entitled to a new trial. The pro se plaintiff in
Verser was sent back to prison after jury instructions and was
thus excluded from the remainder of the proceedings, includ‐
ing participation with respect to jury questions during delib‐
erations, and exercise of his right to poll the jury pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 48(c). Verser, 741 F.3d at 736–
37, 741, 743. We held that Verser was entitled to a new trial.
Id. at 743. We first noted the importance of a jury poll in as‐
certaining that each juror approved of the verdict as returned,
ensuring accountability for the verdict, and helping to ferret
out any dissent that may not have been reflected in the verdict
as announced. See id. at 738 (citing Humphries v. Dist. of Colum‐
bia, 174 U.S. 190, 194 (1899); United States v. Sturman, 49 F.3d
1275, 1282 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. Shepherd, 576 F.2d
719, 725 (7th Cir. 1978)). As a district court’s refusal, or even
neglect, to conduct a requested jury poll is ground for a new
trial, id. at 738–39, we concluded that the same result is re‐
quired where a litigant is unable to make a polling request
after the verdict is read, id. at 741. We explained that a liti‐
gant’s request for a jury poll prior to the verdict would be
premature, as “[i]t is quite unlikely that a litigant would want
a poll if the jury rules in her favor,” whereas “[i]f the verdict
is unfavorable, the litigant might be more inclined to ask for
a poll if there are indications that a verdict may not have been
lack of unanimity or lack of assent by the number of jurors
that the parties stipulated to, the court may direct the jury
to deliberate further or may order a new trial.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 48(c).
No. 13‐2055 15
unanimous or was otherwise tainted.” Id. at 740; see also Fed.
R. Civ. P. 48(c).
Unlike Verser, however, Smego had legal representatives
who remained in the courtroom after his removal. Smego ar‐
gues that counsel should not be considered adequate stand‐
ins when a detained civil litigant is removed without cause.
However, our analysis in Verser itself urges otherwise. We
emphasized there that “[w]hen a plaintiff is acting pro se …
the court must take into account the fact that excluding him
from the courtroom necessarily also excludes his ‘lawyer.’” Id.
at 739. We also cited to Fillippon v. Albion Vein Slate Co., 250
U.S. 76 (1919), in which the Supreme Court explained that the
right to be heard entitles one “to be present in person or by
counsel at all proceedings.” Verser, 741 F.3d at 739 (citing Fil‐
lippon, 250 U.S. at 81) (emphasis added). It was specifically be‐
cause Verser was pro se that his exclusion from the proceed‐
ings left him “entirely unable to participate in his case.” Id. In
contrast, where a party is represented by counsel he is still
“somehow able to make a polling request after the verdict is
read.” Id. (emphasis added).
Smego emphasizes that his removal from the courtroom
left him “incommunicado,”5 like Verser, in the moments after
the jury announced its verdict, such that he could not ask his
lawyer to poll the jury. He cites to Faretta v. California, 422 U.S.
806, 832 (1975), for the proposition that lawyers appear in
court to assist parties, not to act as their alter egos, as well as
5 Smego submits that because he is civilly committed, allowing him access
to his counsel would have required a video or telephone writ, and as no
such writ issued after his removal from the courtroom, there is no basis
for concluding that Smego was able to communicate with his law student
representatives.
16 No. 13‐2055
to Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 344 (1970), in support of the
proposition that the “ability to communicate with” counsel is
one of litigants’ “primary advantages of being present at
trial.” However, it is a basic principle of “our system of repre‐
sentative litigation” that “each party is deemed bound by the
acts of his lawyer‐agent.” Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 370 U.S. 626,
634 (1962); see also id. at 633–34 (“Petitioner voluntarily chose
this attorney as his representative in the action, and he cannot
now avoid the consequences of the acts or omissions of this
freely selected agent.”). And as “an attorney is the agent of
her client,” the former’s knowledge “is imputed to her princi‐
pal.” Washington v. Parkinson, 737 F.3d 470, 473 (7th Cir. 2013)
(citation omitted). Lawyers often act on their clients’ behalf
outside their clients’ presence, and we see no reason why this
should not extend to counsel’s ability to waive polling the
jury.
There may of course be exceptions depending on the spe‐
cific facts of a given case (perhaps, for example, where the cli‐
ent has been held incommunicado during the evidentiary
stages of trial prior to the verdict). However, our usual harm‐
less‐error analysis can facilitate fair outcomes in such in‐
stances on a case‐by‐case basis. Indeed, Verser itself is illustra‐
tive of this point. There, after his removal from the courtroom,
Verser was unable to learn of or participate with respect to
several questions from the jury during deliberations. These
included: (1) a note to the court after deliberating for about
two hours asking whether there was any video of the key
event at issue in Verser’s § 1983 case; (2) another note a little
more than an hour later indicating that the jurors could not
reach an agreement (to which the court responded that they
could choose to return the next day or continue deliberating
further that afternoon); (3) an indication less than an hour
No. 13‐2055 17
later that the jury had reached a verdict but asking, “Can a
juror ask a question to the judge after the verdict is read?,” to
which the court responded, “First, I have to have a verdict”;
and finally, (4) a statement by one of the jurors after the read‐
ing of the verdict that, “This was very hard for us. Many of
us—the majority feel that the defendants all had a part to play
in what happened to Mr. Verser, but because there was a lack
of evidence, we could not find the defendants guilty.” 741
F.3d at 737. We held that “[o]n these particular facts, we can‐
not say that the district court’s error was harmless,” as
“Verser would have realized, had he had some way of know‐
ing the circumstances attending the announcement of the ver‐
dict, that a poll might be fruitful.” Id. at 742–43.
In contrast, in Smego’s case, even assuming that Smego’s
counsel could not waive Smego’s right to poll the jury, Smego
would likely still be out of luck. The district judge instructed
the jury that the verdict had to be unanimous, the jury re‐
turned such a unanimous verdict in an hour and a half with‐
out showing any signs of doubt or dissent, and all of the jurors
signed the verdict. The facts here thus show significantly less
risk of harm to the removed litigant than the circumstances in
Verser did.
Smego also tries to make a broader argument that a rule of
automatic reversal ought to apply if a litigant is wrongfully
removed from the courtroom and deprived of the right to poll
the jury, regardless of whether the error is harmless. He says
such a rule would be sensible because the difference between
cases like his and the ones where a district court does not con‐
duct a requested jury poll (where automatic reversal does ap‐
ply) is merely “temporal.” Smego apparently overlooks that
18 No. 13‐2055
his counsel explicitly declined to request a jury poll. Moreo‐
ver, we expressly engaged in a harmless‐error review in
Verser, see 741 F.3d at 742–43 (finding that Verser had been
prejudiced); and the Supreme Court has stated that “the mi‐
nor matter of failing to poll the jury when it is clear that the
verdict has received the assent of all the jurors cannot be ad‐
judged a nullity, but must be regarded as simply an error,”
Humphries, 174 U.S. at 195.
Finally, Smego argues that even if a lawyer may be an ac‐
ceptable stand‐in for a removed litigant, the procedures re‐
lated to the appointment and supervision of the law students
in the Central District of Illinois were inadequate, such that
his law student representatives should not have been able to
waive his right to poll the jury. This argument was not pre‐
sented to the district court on Smego’s Rule 10 motion, and
we decline to consider it on appeal. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428
U.S. 106, 121 (1976) (“The matter of what questions may be
taken up and resolved for the first time on appeal is one left
primarily to the discretion of the courts of appeals, to be exer‐
cised on the facts of individual cases.”). As we will not be re‐
manding this case, we need not address Smego’s argument
that Circuit Rule 36 ought to apply on remand.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the
district court.