Juries

State v. Sealy and Investigating Juror Misconduct

February 12, 2020 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

Anyone who has ever sat through a jury trial knows the level of attention received by the jury. Tremendous care goes into selecting the jury, as is evident by the nature and extent of the questioning of whole panels and individual jurors, and the related decisions that the parties make concerning peremptory challenges. But what happens after the jury is selected? How should the court deal with issues of juror misconduct? As the recently decided case of State v. Isakova illustrates, any inappropriate conduct by jurors that comes to a court’s attention must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

Defendant was a former corrections officer who was indicted for participating in a scheme to smuggle tobacco into a jail. His conviction was reversed on appeal for various reasons. Among them was a finding by the Appellate Division that the trial court erred in failing to investigate allegations that a juror introduced extraneous information during jury deliberations.

During deliberations, Juror Number Seven sent a note to the trial judge asking him to remove Juror Number Nine because she had family that were cops, her husband was in jail, and her husband used to get things when he was in jail. The court questioned Juror Number Seven after the jury had indicated that it had reached a unanimous verdict. During that colloquy, the juror stated that Juror Number Nine was biased in her opinions and was making several jurors uncomfortable. The trial court refused to interview Juror Number Nine because it believed that there was nothing in Juror Number Seven’s note that triggered a concern about Juror Number Nine’s ability to deliberate with the other jurors. Continue reading ›

Flowers v. Mississippi – Striking Prospective Jurors Because Of Race

July 5, 2019 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

Mississippi has tried Curtis Flowers six times for allegedly murdering four employees at a furniture store. Flowers is black and three of the four alleged victims were white.

Mississippi has not been able to convict Flowers because the prosecutor(s) handling each trial are flaming racists who got caught doing something no trial attorney should do. At the first two trials, they struck (e.g., removed with a peremptory challenge) all of the qualified black prospective jurors. Both juries convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death, but the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the convictions because of prosecutorial misconduct. At the third trial, the State used all 15 of its challenges to strike black prospective jurors, and the jury again convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed again, this time because of a violation of Batson v. Kentucky, which held that once a defendant establishes a prima facie case of discrimination concerning the manner in which challenges are being used, the State must give race-neutral explanations for its challenges, and the trial judge must determine whether those reasons are valid or just a pretext for discrimination. The fourth and fifth trials ended in mistrials. At the fourth trial, the State used 11 challenges against black prospective jurors. No racial information concerning the prospective jurors at the fifth trial exists (or it was at least conveniently omitted from the State’s papers). At the sixth trial, the State used six challenges. Five were directed against black prospective jurors. One black juror was seated. Flowers raised a Batson claim, but the trial judge found that the State’s proffered explanations were race-neutral. The jury convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death, and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case, but the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed again.

The United States Supreme Court reversed, finding that the surrounding facts and circumstances demonstrate that the trial judge’s conclusion at the sixth trial that the State’s reasons for striking one of the black prospective jurors were race-neutral was clearly erroneous. In doing so, the Court noted that four categories of evidence factored into its decision, where the State had a persistent pattern of striking black prospective jurors at each trial. Continue reading ›

Major US Supreme Court Ruling Concerning Secrecy of Jury Deliberations

April 30, 2017 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

A right to a jury trial for major criminal offenses and the jury as an institution are at the center of the Anglo-American criminal justice system. Most of a jury’s tasks are performed secretly. This is done intentionally so as to protect the integrity of the deliberative process and encourage open and frank discussions between and among jurors. When the verdict comes in, the only people who really know the full extent of what happened in the jury room are the jurors, themselves. This is intentional – particularly in New Jersey where the state courts go to great lengths to protect the secrecy of jury deliberations.

In Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the United States Supreme Court recently held that the secrecy of jury deliberations may be breached in order to investigate racially biased statements that a juror made about a defendant. The defendant was convicted of groping two teenage girls in a bathroom at a Colorado racetrack where he was employed. He denied the charges claiming mistaken identity, and called alibi witnesses at trial. His jury acquitted him of a felony, but convicted him of misdemeanors. The trial court sentenced him to a term of probation, and ordered him to register as a sex offender.

After trial, two jurors told defense counsel that another juror made comments about Mexicans during deliberations. He informed his fellow jurors that he was a former law enforcement officer who had seen many cases like this one. He referred to the defendant as an “illegal” (untrue – the defendant was a legal resident), and also stated that “nine times out of ten Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls.” Continue reading ›