Opinion ID: 705512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion for a New Jury Panel

Text: 8 During a recess that followed voir dire of the jury panel but preceded selection of the jury, court-appointed interpreter Fernando Torres conversed with two members of the jury panel as he stood before a public vending machine. The court, which learned of the problem before court resumed, questioned Torres regarding the communication and gave counsel an opportunity to do the same. Torres reported that the conversation had been unrelated to Calderin's case. The court also questioned the two jurors, who like Torres reported that the conversation was unrelated to the trial. They also indicated that they did not believe their impartiality to have been compromised by the conversation. The court invited defense counsel to make a motion regarding the jurors, and defense counsel responded with a motion that the entire jury panel be dismissed and replaced with a new panel. The court understandably denied this motion. Subsequently, the defense neither asked that the two jurors be excused for cause nor exercised its preemptory challenges to have them excused. Calderin now argues that starting over with an entirely new panel was the only reasonable remedy for the ex parte communication, because he could not fairly be required to exercise one of his limited preemptory challenges on these jurors. 9 Calderin's argument is unpersuasive. First, not every ex parte juror communication requires drastic corrective measures. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 737 F.2d 594, 612 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1003 (1985). Instead, [a] trial may proceed if the court, after considering factors such as the communication's nature, the jurors' responses, and the curative ability of instructions, finds that the jury can (and will) remain impartial and render a verdict based solely on the evidence, not the improper contact. This finding is essentially one of fact, and is reviewable under the clearly-erroneous standard. Id. (citations omitted). In addition, the district court is afforded broad discretion in remedying any prejudicial impact. Id. at 613. See also Evans v. Young, 854 F.2d 1081, 1083-84 (7th Cir.1988). In this case, with the jury not yet empaneled at the time of the prohibited communication, any perceived prejudice could obviously have been remedied by simply dismissing the two jurors who had, under Calderin's theory, been tainted. If Calderin believed that the jurors had been prejudiced because of their communication with Torres, he could have requested that the jurors be dismissed for cause. Having failed to request that simple solution to any perceived problem, however, Calderin's argument on appeal lacks any credibility. Certainly the district court did not abuse its discretion in failing to dismiss the entire jury panel when the defense failed even to request the far more reasonable alternative of simply dismissing these two jurors.