Opinion ID: 6349528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implied Juror Bias

Text: [¶6] Hemminger argues2 that the court erred in denying her challenge to strike for cause a juror whose father was injured by a drunk driver because the juror was impliedly biased3 as a matter of law. “Whether a juror’s partiality 2Hemminger’s brief does not expressly rest her argument on any particular constitutional provision. We presume, however, based on the invocation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments in her reply brief and our discussion in State v. Carey, 2019 ME 131, ¶ 13, 214 A.3d 488, that the argument rests on the right to an impartial jury guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Implied bias is distinct from implicit bias and actual bias, although jury selection can involve 3 identifying all three forms of bias. “Implicit biases, [unlike explicit biases], are unstated and unrecognized and operate outside of conscious awareness. Social scientists refer to them as hidden, cognitive, or automatic biases, but they are nonetheless pervasive and powerful. Unfortunately, they are also much more difficult to ascertain, measure, and study than explicit biases.” Mark W. Bennett, Unraveling the Gordian Knot of Implicit Bias in Jury Selection: The Problems of Judge-Dominated Voir Dire, the Failed Promise of Batson, and Proposed Solutions, 4 Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. 149, 152 (2010); see Ill. Pattern Jury Instr., No. 1.08, cmt. (May 2018) (“The literature on implicit bias explains that everyone has implicit biases. This 8 may be presumed from the circumstances is a question of law,” State v. Carey, 2019 ME 131, ¶ 25, 214 A.3d 488 (quotation marks omitted), and we review questions of law de novo, Medeika v. Watts, 2008 ME 163, ¶ 5, 957 A.2d 980. [¶7] We discussed the doctrine of implied juror bias for the first time in State v. Carey, 2019 ME 131, ¶¶ 25-26, 214 A.3d 488. There, we explained that, in determining whether a juror’s bias may be implied, the inquiry is an objective one focusing on whether an average person in the position of the challenged juror “could remain impartial in deliberations under the circumstances.” Id. ¶ 25 (alterations and quotation marks omitted). “[B]ias can be implied . . . only in extreme or extraordinary circumstances.” Id. ¶ 26. In Carey, when the charges against the defendant were described during jury selection, one prospective juror stated, clearly enough that other jurors could have heard, means that judges and jurors are not immune. . . . It is particularly important for judges and jurors, who strive to be impartial decision-makers, to be aware of this phenomenon and to try to guard against it for purposes of the trial.”). Implied bias, on the other hand, involves unusual or extreme situations in which the law presumes that a juror should be disqualified from service because of the likelihood that the average person in the juror’s position would be unable to serve impartially as a juror in the case: “Unlike the inquiry for actual bias, in which we examine the juror’s answers on voir dire for evidence that she was in fact partial, the issue for implied bias is whether an average person in the position of the juror in controversy would be prejudiced.” United States v. Gonzalez, 214 F.3d 1109, 1112 (9th Cir. 2000) (quotation marks omitted). Some state statutes define situations in which a juror is disqualified based on implied bias, see, e.g., Wash. Rev. Code § 4.44.180 (2022) (implied bias defined in four different forms), although Maine has no such statute. Hemminger’s argument is limited to implied bias; she does not contend that the juror was actually biased or implicitly biased. Because Hemminger does not argue actual or implicit bias on appeal, we do not consider them further. See Moyant v. Petit, 2021 ME 13, ¶ 7 n.4, 247 A.3d 326. 9 “No, I’m not staying for this” and “[t]his is ridiculous” and abruptly left the room. Id. ¶ 5. We concluded that the remaining jurors were not impliedly biased because we “[could] not conclude, as a matter of law, that it would be highly unlikely that members of the jury pool could be fair and impartial after observing one juror’s [outburst].” Id. ¶ 27. [¶8] Because Carey is the only case in which we have addressed implied juror bias and the circumstances were distinguishable from those here, federal jurisprudence4 is instructive.5 Consistent with our precedent in Carey, federal courts apply the doctrine only in extreme or extraordinary circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Kechedzian, 902 F.3d 1023, 1027-28 (9th Cir. 2018); Hunley v. Godinez, 975 F.2d 316, 319 (7th Cir. 1992); Gonzales v. Thomas, 99 F.3d 978, 987 (10th Cir. 1996). Courts have sometimes concluded that a juror is impliedly biased “where a juror or his close relatives have been 4Hemminger’s appeal regarding implied bias raises no independent argument specific to the Maine Constitution. See State v. Chan, 2020 ME 91, ¶ 18 n.10, 236 A.3d 471. 5 Although the United States Supreme Court has never explicitly applied the implied bias doctrine, it has been invoked in concurring and dissenting opinions. See Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 222-23 (1982) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (noting that “[n]one of [the Supreme Court’s] previous cases preclude the use of the conclusive presumption of implied bias in appropriate circumstances” and that some examples of implied bias “might include a revelation that the juror is an actual employee of the prosecuting agency, that the juror is a close relative of one of the participants in the trial or the criminal transaction, or that the juror was a witness or somehow involved in the criminal transaction”); McDonough Power Equip. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 558 (1984) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“Because the bias of a juror will rarely be admitted by the juror himself, . . . it necessarily must be inferred from surrounding facts and circumstances.”). 10 personally involved in a situation involving a similar fact pattern.” Tinsley v. Borg, 895 F.2d 520, 528 (9th Cir. 1990); see United States v. Gonzalez, 214 F.3d 1109, 1112-13 (9th Cir. 2000); Jackson v. United States, 395 F.2d 615, 618 (D.C. Cir. 1968). Courts have also considered whether the juror disclosed the information about the similar experience during jury selection. See, e.g., Dyer v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 970, 983 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[W]e presume bias where a juror lies in order to secure a seat on a jury.”); Kechedzian, 902 F.3d at 1027-28 (“This Court has found implied bias in those extreme situations . . . where repeated lies in voir dire imply that the juror concealed material facts in order to secure a spot on the particular jury.” (citations and quotation marks omitted)); cf. Gonzales v. Thomas, 99 F.3d at 989 (“Though a juror’s dishonesty in voir dire may be considered in an implied bias inquiry, it is not necessary to an implied bias finding.”). [¶9] For example, in United States v. Eubanks, the Ninth Circuit concluded that a juror was impliedly biased where the charges involved heroin because his sons were currently incarcerated for crimes related to heroin use, information that he did not disclose during jury selection. 591 F.2d 513, 516-17 (9th Cir. 1979). Likewise, in Jackson v. United States, the D.C. Circuit concluded that a juror was impliedly biased where the juror was allegedly involved in a 11 love triangle remarkably similar to the one at issue in the case. 395 F.2d at 616-18. The Seventh Circuit also applied the doctrine in Hunley v. Godinez, concluding that jurors in a burglary case were impliedly biased because, during sequestration, their hotel had been burglarized in a manner similar to that alleged in the defendant’s case. 975 F.2d at 317-20. [¶10] Conversely, the Ninth Circuit declined to apply the implied bias doctrine in an identity-theft case where a juror had previously been a victim of identity theft but had fully disclosed the experience during voir dire. Kechedzian, 902 F.3d at 1025, 1028. The Tenth Circuit also held that a juror who had been a victim of rape under circumstances similar to the facts of the case was not impliedly biased because the experience did not have “a detrimental life-changing impact on [the juror’s] life” and occurred twenty-five years before the trial. Gonzales v. Thomas, 99 F.3d at 990-91. [¶11] We conclude that the juror here was not impliedly biased because the circumstances were not so “extreme or extraordinary” as to make it unlikely that the average person in the position of the juror could serve impartially. See Carey, 2019 ME 131, ¶ 26, 214 A.3d 488. The juror’s father was injured fifteen years earlier in an accident involving a female drunk driver. Although a particular person might remain so affected by such circumstances as to be 12 unable to serve impartially, others might not, so we cannot say that “it is highly unlikely that the average person could remain impartial” under these circumstances. Id. ¶ 25 (quotation marks omitted). As the trial court explained, the only parallel between the juror’s experience and Hemminger’s case is that the intoxicated driver was a woman in both instances. [¶12] Hemminger does not point to any judicial determination of implied bias where, as here, the victim of the prior criminal event was the juror’s family member rather than the juror himself, the event occurred many years ago, the juror forthrightly disclosed that information to the court, and the juror repeatedly affirmed his ability to serve impartially. Further, Hemminger ignores the cases in which courts have concluded that a juror was not impliedly biased under circumstances that were seemingly more extreme than those here. See Gonzales v. Thomas, 99 F.3d at 987-91; Kechedzian, 902 F.3d at 1028. [¶13] For these reasons, we conclude that the court did not err in denying Hemminger’s challenge to the juror for cause.