Opinion ID: 776195
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Impartiality of the Jury.

Text: 129 The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants criminal defendants the right to be tried by an impartial jury. U.S. Const. Amend.VI. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has observed, [o]ne touchstone of a fair trial is an impartial trier of fact -- a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it. McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 554 (1984) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The right to trial before an impartial trier of fact -- be it a jury or a judge -- therefore implicates Due Process as well as Sixth Amendment rights. 130 In the case at bar, Juror 108, from the beginning of his voir dire, expressed concern for events affecting the Jewish community and, in particular, voiced his dissatisfaction with the State proceedings that resulted in defendant Nelson's acquittal. Moreover, on further questioning, Juror 108 said that although he would like to think of himself as objective and able to give the defendants a fair trial, he [h]onestly... [didn't] know whether he could do so. (Tr. 619-21). And, the last answer Juror 108 gave when the district court asked him once again whether he could set aside his personal feelings and give the defendants a fair trial was I don't know. I honestly don't know. (Tr. 632). 131 In spite of these statements, and in the context of its express desire to ensure that the empaneled jury contained an adequate number of Jewish jurors, the district court denied the defendants' for cause challenge to Juror 108. Then, by the unusual -- and indeed illegal, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 24(c) -- method described above and discussed below, the district court placed Juror 108 on the main panel that decided the defendants' case. The defendants now challenge these decisions of the district court. 132 We review a district court's rejection of a defendant's for cause challenge to a juror for abuse of discretion. Murray, 618 F.2d at 899. Indeed, [t]here are few aspects of a jury trial where we would be less inclined to disturb a trial judge's exercise of discretion, absent clear abuse, than in ruling on challenges for cause in the empaneling of a jury. Ploof, 464 F.2d at 118 n.4. This is especially true when, as here, a for cause challenge to a juror's impartiality rests on a claim that the juror suffers from what is generally called actual bias, that is, the existence of a state of mind that leads to an inference that the person will not act with entire impartiality. United States v. Torres, 128 F.3d 38, 43 (2d Cir. 1997). 46 A district court's findings concerning actual bias are based upon determinations of demeanor and credibility that are peculiarly within a trial judge's province. Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 428 (1985). 133 In spite of this deferential standard of review, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion, and committed reversible error, in denying the defendants' for cause challenge to Juror 108. We believe, in other words, that Juror 108 sufficiently revealed actual bias in his answers during voir dire to require his exclusion from the jury. [A] voir dire admission by the prospective juror of a state of mind prejudicial to a party's interest, United States v. Haynes, 398 F.2d 980, 984 (2d Cir. 1968), is the most common and direct ground on the basis of which actual bias is found to exist. The admissions, indeed the repeated and persistent admissions, made to the district court by Juror 108 are precisely of this sort. As two of our sister courts have said, [d]oubts about the existence of actual bias should be resolved against permitting the juror to serve, unless the prospective panelist's protestation of a purge of preconception is positive, not pallid. Bailey v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 956 F.2d 1112, 1127 (11th Cir. 1992) (quoting United States v. Nell, 526 F.2d 1223, 1230 (5th Cir. 1976)). And as a third has added, a juror who `could probably be fair and impartial' should not be considered impartial, because `[p]robably' is not good enough. United States v. Sithithongtham, 192 F.3d 1119, 1121 (8th Cir. 1999). This is especially so when, as in this case, the potential bias does not represent only a general state of mind but also a predisposition to believe in the guilt of one of the very defendants who is being tried. 47 134 Furthermore, although we have acknowledged that, it is the rare juror who could honestly `guarantee' that his feelings about the particular type of crime alleged would in no way affect his deliberations. United States v. Murray, 618 F.2d 892, 899 (2d Cir. 1980), we have also called it crucial that in spite of these predispositions, a prospective juror should state[] in effect that she would do her best to determine the case on the evidence presented, and that she has made clear that her [predispositions] would not affect her judgment, and that she would determine the case solely on the evidence presented. Id. Thus, it is important that a juror who has expressed doubts about his or her impartiality also unambiguously assure the district court, in the face of these doubts, of her willingness to exert truly best efforts to decide the case without reference to the predispositions and based solely on the evidence presented at trial. See, e.g., United States v. Towne, 870 F.2d 880, 885 (2d Cir. 1989) (upholding the denial of a challenge for cause with respect to a juror who at first expressed reservations about her ability to be an impartial juror based on her knowledge of defendant's prosecution for various crimes in state court but who later promise[d] that she would try to decide the case based on the evidence presented); Ploof, 464 F.2d at 118 (doing the same when a juror who at first said that his thinking `might' be affected [based on a personal experience]; [but later] upon being reminded by the court of his oath,... said that he would do away with the `might' and that he would do his best). 135 Juror 108, having, inter alia, expressed his chagrin with defendant Nelson's state trial acquittal, never purged himself of his preconceptions. He never even asserted that he could probably be impartial. And he never promised to focus his attention on the evidence presented at trial. Specifically, Juror 108 never made clear... that []he would determine the case solely on the evidence presented, Murray, 618 F.2d at 899, or promise[d] that []he would try to decide the case based on the evidence presented, Towne, 870 F.2d at 885, or said that he would do his best, Ploof, 464 F.2d at 118, to decide the case in this impartial way. The most that Juror 108 said was that he would like to think that he could be impartial, but that he honestly [didn't] know. 136 The principal reason for which jurors are dismissed for cause is that they are unwilling or unable to follow the applicable law. United States v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606, 616 (2d Cir. 1997). In the case at bar, this is the failing Juror 108 in effect admitted to and did not adequately take back. In light of this failing, we hold that the district court abused its discretion when it denied the defendants' for cause challenge to that juror. 137 This is not a case, moreover, in which, in spite of an erroneous refusal to strike a biased juror for cause, that biased juror was not in the end empaneled, so that the jury which was ultimately selected was fair and impartial. Towne, 870 F.2d at 885 (Since appellant has in no way established the partiality of the jury that ultimately convicted him, he may not successfully claim deprivation of his sixth amendment or due process rights.). That is, this is not a case in which, for example, an erroneous refusal to strike a biased juror for cause meant that the defendants had to use up one of their peremptory strikes to remove the offending juror from the pool. See Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 88 (1988) ([T]he fact that the defendant had to use a peremptory challenge to achieve [the result of an impartial jury] does not mean that the Sixth Amendment was violated.); United States v. Rubin, 37 F.3d 49, 54 (2d Cir. 1994) (holding that where an impartial jury was finally empaneled, the need to waste peremptory challenges to eliminate jurors whom the trial court should have removed for cause cannot be the basis of a Sixth Amendment challenge); see also United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. 304, 307 (2000) ([I]f the defendant elects to cure [a trial court's erroneous refusal to strike a juror for cause] by exercising a peremptory challenge, and is subsequently convicted by a jury on which no biased juror sat, he has not been deprived of any rule-based or constitutional right [i.e., of any right under the Sixth Amendment or under the Due Process Clause applied in connection with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure].). 138 We are faced, instead, with a case in which the district court's erroneous refusal to strike Juror 108 on account of his bias, together with its other jury selection actions (to be discussed in due course), wrongly resulted in the empanelment of a jury on which the biased juror sat. Consequently, the defendants in this case were convicted, in contravention of the Sixth Amendment and due process, by a jury that cannot be deemed to have been fully impartial. 48 139