Opinion ID: 4208659
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Juror-Misconduct Investigation

Text: Our opinion in Zimny I exhaustively chronicled the backstory behind the juror-misconduct allegation, see id. at 46164, and we see no need to parrot that background here. It suffices to say that someone who claimed to have been a juror at Zimny's trial commented on a blog post, suggesting that another juror, [Juror No. 8], had exposed her colleagues to prejudicial information on the blog during trial. Id. at 464, 467-68.2 The additional-juror comment, which surfaced after Zimny was convicted, read as follows: Boy this is getting comical. I've been following it on and off, and was also on the jury. Mama June [a reference to Juror No. 8], and those who were there know what I'm talking about, was spouting about the shots in the dark blog since day one. Its [sic] why she conveniently got sick and didn't finish her service. Several other jurors told her to stfu and got annoyed. [I]diot doesent [sic] describe the half it [sic]. We determined that Zimny, relying on the additional-juror comment, raised a colorable claim of juror misconduct that required an 2 In Zimny I, we referred to this blog-post comment as the additional-juror comment, 846 F.3d at 464, and we shall do the same in this opinion. - 5 - investigation by the district court, and, because the court initially declined to investigate it, we remanded so that the required investigation could take place. Id. at 470, 472. On remand, the district court, with the agreement of both parties, first sought to determine the author of the additional-juror comment by identifying the device from which that comment was posted. The postal inspector assigned to this task reported that the comment had been posted using an internet protocol (IP) address associated with an internet service provider in Singapore. Because obtaining the specific IP address user information would require a lengthy and difficult process, the court decided that it would instead bring the jurors in for questioning. The court questioned each of the thirteen other jurors individually in the presence of the attorneys.3 The court developed, with input from both parties, a script for the interrogation. At the hearing, the court asked all of the questions, allowing the parties to submit proposed additional questions at the conclusion of the court's initial questioning of each juror. Each juror was shown a copy of the additional-juror comment, and 3 The court declined to question Juror No. 8 — who the court had initially questioned soon after trial and before we decided Zimny I — a second time. - 6 - each testified that he or she had never seen it before. Each juror was also asked whether the events alleged in the additional-juror comment occurred and whether a juror was spouting about the blog. Also, because of the Singapore-based IP address used to post the additional-juror comment, the court asked the jurors whether they travelled outside the United States since the end of the trial. Each juror testified either that he or she had not travelled outside of the United States or that his or her international travel did not include stops in Asia. Juror No. 1 testified that, one or two days after the trial ended, he conducted an internet search that led him to the blog. He also testified that he did not author any comments to this blog post. Juror No. 4 testified that, at some point before deliberations began, she remembered hearing somebody — she could not remember who — say that there was something posted on a blog.4 She also testified, however, that she didn't hear what it was about, or anything and that she didn't think [the speaker] said what it was about. After the hearing, the district court issued a comprehensive written decision setting forth its findings and 4 Juror No. 4 testified that she didn't know whether it was online or a blog and that she was using the terms online and blog kind of interchangeably. - 7 - conclusions.5 The court explicitly found that: each juror was credible; the author of the additional-juror comment was not a juror; no juror misconduct occurred; Juror No. 8 was not spouting about the blog post to her fellow jurors; and the jurors had not been exposed to the blog post during their service. After the district court issued its decision, we permitted the parties to file supplemental briefs. The parties did so, and, in his supplemental brief, Zimny raises a host of issues with the district court's investigation.
We review the district court's response to allegations of juror misconduct for abuse of discretion.6 See id. at 464. This deferential standard of review allows the district court wide latitude to determine the precise manner in which to investigate colorable allegations of juror misconduct. Id. at 465, 472. The 5 Before issuing the decision, the district court provided the parties with the opportunity to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Despite indicating his desire to do so, Zimny never filed this document. 6 Although Zimny seems to concede as much in his opening supplemental brief, he offers a somewhat different argument in his supplemental reply brief. In that filing, he argues that the standard of review is controlled by the mandate rule of the law of the case doctrine. (Capitalization omitted.) This argument appears to rest on the mistaken premise that Zimny I imposed an obligation — independent of conducting the investigation into whether the allegations of juror misconduct occurred — on the district court to adequately gauge the jurors' memories; as we explain below, our opinion in Zimny I did no such thing. - 8 - touchstone is reasonableness: did the trial court fashion, and then even-handedly implement, a sensible procedure reasonably calculated to determine whether something untoward has occurred? Id. at 465 (quoting United States v. Paniagua-Ramos, 251 F.3d 242, 249-50 (1st Cir. 2001)). In the end, [s]o long as the district judge erects, and employs, a suitable framework for investigating the allegation and gauging its effects, and thereafter spells out [her] findings with adequate specificity to permit informed appellate review, [her] determination that the jury has not been soured deserves great respect [and] . . . should not be disturbed in the absence of a patent abuse of discretion. United States v. Boylan, 898 F.2d 230, 258 (1st Cir. 1990) (fourth alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting United States v. Hunnewell, 891 F.2d 955, 961 (1st Cir. 1989)).7 [A] trial court's findings on issues of juror credibility and honesty are determinations peculiarly within a trial judge's province and are accorded great deference. Faria v. Harleysville Worcester Ins. Co., 852 F.3d 87, 90 (1st Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Amirault v. Fair, 968 7 Zimny claims that the phrase patent abuse of discretion is incompatible with the standard of review set out in United States v. Bradshaw, 281 F.3d 278, 291 (1st Cir. 2002). We disagree. In Bradshaw, this court explained, citing both Boylan and Hunnewell (both of which we have just quoted), that we test the trial court's handiwork against the abuse-of-discretion benchmark. Id. We then added that [i]n this context, however, review for abuse of discretion connotes a certain rigor. Id. We see no inconsistency in our case law regarding the governing standard of review. - 9 - F.2d 1404, 1405 (1st Cir. 1992) (per curiam)). [A]bsent objective evidence that contradicts a witness's story or a situation where the story itself is so internally inconsistent or implausible that no reasonable factfinder would credit it, 'the ball game is virtually over' once a district court determines that a key witness is credible. United States v. Guzmán-Batista, 783 F.3d 930, 937 (1st Cir. 2015) (citation omitted) (quoting Rivera–Gómez v. de Castro, 900 F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1990)).8 Along similar lines, we uphold a district court's findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous. See United States v. Tejeda, 481 F.3d 44, 52 (1st Cir. 2007). Within this deferential framework, Zimny's arguments do not succeed. Generally speaking, he attacks the court's: (a) 8 Zimny argues — without any citation to authority — that, because the district court did not say why it credited each of the jurors, the court's indiscriminate credibility finding puts this [c]ourt in as good a position to evaluate credibility as the district court was. To the extent that Zimny means to suggest that we need not defer to the court's credibility determinations, we reject this argument out of hand. Our deference to credibility determinations reflects the stark differences between districtcourt judges — who have a front-row seat in which to observe a witness's demeanor and inflection while testifying — and the judges of this court — who are far removed from the action in the trial court and can review only a cold appellate record — when it comes to assessing whether a witness is telling the truth. See, e.g., Guzmán-Batista, 783 F.3d at 937; United States v. Lowe, 145 F.3d 45, 49 (1st Cir. 1998) (The trial judge is in the best position to assess a potential juror's credibility by observing her demeanor, reaction to questioning, and overall behavior on the stand.); see also Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985); United States v. Meader, 118 F.3d 876, 881 (1st Cir. 1997). - 10 - failure to adequately probe the possibility that juror memories have faded; (b) factual findings; (c) questioning of Juror No. 1; (d) limitations on the involvement of defense counsel; and (e) failure to question Juror No. 8 and the blog's host. We address each of his several arguments in turn.
Zimny complains that the district court's inquiry of the jurors was insufficient to explore the possibility that jurors' memories had faded since trial. He faults the court for declining his request to question the jurors about their memories of the trial events in general, to provide a context and baseline sense of the robustness of individual memories against which the strength of their memories of the specific events at issue could be evaluated. He also complains about the court's failure to make any findings regarding the adequacy of the jurors' memories of what occurred in the jury room during the trial before deliberations. But, contrary to Zimny's insistence, the purpose of the remand was not to investigate the potential that the jurors' memories may have faded in the interim since trial. Rather, the purpose of the remand was to determine whether the juror misconduct alleged in the additional-juror comment actually occurred. Zimny I, 846 F.3d at 472 (We remand with instructions that the district court conduct an investigation into the juror-misconduct - 11 - allegations raised in the additional-juror comment. Specifically, the district court must ascertain 'whether [this alleged] misconduct actually occurred and[,] if so, determine whether it was prejudicial.' (alterations in original) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 675 F.3d 48, 58 (1st Cir. 2012))). The district court's inquiry was appropriately focused on this objective. We viewed the prospect of faded memories in Zimny I as something that would be confirmed or refuted in the course of fulfilling the purpose of the remand — not as the purpose in itself. Id. ([T]he district court's inquiry will readily reveal whether memories have faded . . . .). Even so, Juror No. 4's testimony that she remembered hearing somebody say that there was something posted on a blog, but could not remember the speaker does little to support Zimny's conclusion that Juror No. 8 was spouting about the blog post given that Juror No. 4 also testified that she didn't hear what [the blog post] was about, or anything.

Zimny's first challenge to the district court's findings is an offshoot of his faded-memories complaint: He argues that the questioning of the jurors demonstrated that their memories had faded and that these faded memories undermine the court's finding that the jurors were not exposed to the blog during their service. We disagree. - 12 - Each juror was asked whether the events alleged in the additional-juror comment occurred and whether a juror was spouting about the blog. Of the thirteen jurors who were questioned, ten testified unequivocally that the allegations in the additionaljuror comment did not occur. Of these ten, three referenced memory in the course of answering one or two, but not all, of the critical questions they were asked.9 We reject Zimny's characterization of these answers as reflecting a general failure of memory on the part of these three jurors; read in context, their testimony gives no hint that the allegations in the additional-juror comment occurred. 9 When Juror No. 2 was asked whether any of the events alleged in the additional-juror comment occurred, he responded, To the best of my memory, I believe one person did get sick and didn't come back, one of the jurors. The district court then asked, Nothing else that is described there? Juror No. 2 testified: No. The only thing I remember is one of the jurors got sick, I believe, a couple of times or cancelled one day or couldn't get here, or something. Along similar lines, when Juror No. 6 was asked whether another juror was spouting about the blog or whether any jurors discussed the blog while he was in the jury room, he testified, Not that I can remember and Not that I remember. Finally, during the course of Juror No. 11's testimony, the following exchange occurred: THE COURT: Was there any discussion in the jury room of any blog called Shots In The Dark or -- [JUROR]: No, absolutely not. THE COURT: What was it called? -- Harvard Admissions Lawsuit? [JUROR]: No, not that I -- not that I recall, no. - 13 - That leaves three jurors. The answers of two of them were of the not that I can recall variety.10 But nothing in their testimony suggests in any way that the allegations in the additional-juror comment actually occurred. Finally, Juror No. 12 simply was unaware of whether a juror was spouting about the blog because he was reading a magazine and so wasn't paying attention . . . until [the jurors] really started to discuss the case seriously. But even his testimony establishes at least that Juror No. 8 was not spouting about the blog to him. In these circumstances, the district court did not clearly err in concluding that Juror No. 8 was not spouting about the blog post and that the jurors were not exposed to the blog post during their service. 10 When Juror No. 1 was asked whether something like [Juror No. 8 spouting about the blog] occur[red] in the jury room, he testified, Not that I recall, and I didn't give -- I didn't communicate much with the juror who got sick, whether or not she was sick in quotes or sick in actuality. I didn't communicate with her. When the district court asked a follow-up question about whether Juror No. 1 heard Juror No. 8 making comments about Mr. Zimny or about the trial or anything like that, he testified, Not that I recall, no. Similarly, when Juror No. 13 was asked similar questions about whether there was a discussion about what a juror might have learned from online activity or whether there was any discussion about the blog, she responded with the following similar answers: To my knowledge and my remembering, no; Not that I know of; No, because I've never heard of that blog; Not that I remember and not that I know of; and Not that I know of and not that I remember or recall. - 14 -
Zimny next argues that the district court's finding that the alleged juror misconduct did not occur is unsupported because the court failed to question the jurors about whether they were exposed to the substance of what was discussed in the blog-post comments; instead, the court asked only whether the jurors were familiar with the Shots in the Dark blog or the Harvard Admissions Lawsuit blog. For several reasons, we are unpersuaded. At the outset, it appears to us that Zimny never raised this issue to the district court. The script — which Zimny concedes was developed with input from the parties — asked the jurors whether the events described in the additional-juror comment occurred, and the court's questions of the jurors largely followed suit. And Zimny has not pointed us to any spot in the record where he raised this substance-of-the-blog issue with the district court, and we see nothing in our review of the record to suggest that he ever did so. In any event, even if the issue had been preserved, Zimny mischaracterizes the questions that the district court asked. The court did not, as Zimny claims, ask merely whether the jurors were aware of or familiar with the blog. Instead, the court asked every single juror whether the events described in the additionaljuror comment occurred and whether there was a juror spouting about the blog. And we see no abuse of discretion in the court's framing - 15 - of this question. After all, the additional-juror comment did not say that Juror No. 8 was spouting about, to use Zimny's words, some of the scurrilous things said about Zimny on that blog. Instead, the additional-juror comment alleged that Juror No. 8 was spouting about the 'shots in the dark' blog since day one. It was not an abuse of discretion to ask the jurors about that precise allegation.
Zimny also takes issue with the district court's finding that a juror was not the author of the additional-juror comment, contending it is not supported by the jurors' testimony. We disagree. Every juror was asked whether they had ever before seen the additional-juror comment — and the author necessarily saw it — and each responded that he or she had not.11 So that's that.12 11 And that's not all. After Zimny raised the distinction between questions about familiarity with the court's exhibit of the additional-juror comment and questions about familiarity with the contents of the additional-juror comment — which strikes us as a hair-splitting gripe — the court explicitly asked several jurors whether they were familiar with the contents of the additionaljuror comment; once again, each juror who was asked that question unequivocally testified that he or she was not familiar with the comment's contents. What's more, the court asked some jurors whether they knew who may have posted or authored the additionaljuror comment, and those jurors all stated that they did not. 12 In a similar vein, Zimny faults the district court for declining his request to ask jurors about their computer skills. Because a user can manipulate the identity of the IP address being used, the argument goes, [i]nquiry into computer skills and savvy rather than [post-trial] travel was much more likely to be productive. But determining whether a juror was computer savvy enough to manipulate an IP address was relevant only to determining - 16 -
Zimny also nitpicks the court's questioning of Juror No. 1. Although Juror No. 1 testified that he had visited the blog a day or two after Zimny's trial ended, Zimny argues that the juror's answer about why he visited the blog — to find out what was going on — suggested that he was not being truthful. Here's what Zimny has to say about this: Because [Juror No. 1] knew what had gone on in the trial[,] his answer implies he expected to see something about the trial on the blog, suggesting that he was returning rather than visiting the blog for the first time. And the court, in Zimny's view, erred in not pursuing this inviting lead. We disagree. Zimny's argument about the truthfulness of Juror No. 1's testimony is speculative at best. What's more, it runs headlong into the court's explicit determination that Juror No. 1 was credible — a determination that we will not disturb. See Faria, 852 F.3d at 90; Guzmán-Batista, 783 F.3d at 937. Zimny also complains that, despite Juror No. 1's testimony that he spoke with Juror No. 8 during the trial, the district court did not ask him about the substance of any of these whether the juror authored the additional-juror comment, and the district court's direct questioning on this subject, when coupled with its determination that each juror was credible, amply grounds the court's determination that the author of the additional-juror comment was not a juror. - 17 - conversations. But Juror No. 1 testified that he didn't communicate much with Juror No. 8, and, when asked whether he heard her make any comments about Zimny or about the trial or anything like that, he responded, Not that I recall, no. Zimny's final gripe about the court's questioning of Juror No. 1 is that the court failed to ask him whether he had the ability to access the internet in his employer's Singapore office. But Juror No. 1 was asked point-blank whether he posted any comments on the blog, and he responded that he did not. So enough said about that.13
Zimny also claims that the district court's refusal to let the attorneys question the jurors directly was unwarranted. But [c]ounsel has no right to pose specific questions to a juror or to pursue every desired avenue of inquiry. The control and direction of a court's investigation into juror misconduct is within the discretion of the district court, not defense counsel. United States v. Ortiz-Arrigoitia, 996 F.2d 436, 443 (1st Cir. 1993). 13 Zimny also lodges similar complaints about the court's failure to ask similar follow-up questions to Juror No. 10, who, like Juror No. 1, spoke with Juror No. 8 during trial and worked for an employer who had an office in Singapore. But Juror No. 10 testified that he had never heard of the blog before his testimony and that he had no idea who authored the additional-juror comment, and the court found him to be credible. - 18 - Along similar lines, Zimny complains that counsel's opportunities to suggest questions were unfairly limited and that the court unjustifiably refused to pursue some of Zimny's suggested lines of inquiry. Here's what happened: After the court concluded its initial questioning of each juror (and, don't forget, the attorneys had helped formulate the script of questions), the court permitted defense counsel to submit proposed follow-up questions; defense counsel did so for each and every juror. And the court frequently incorporated Zimny's suggestions into its inquiry. On multiple occasions when the court did not do so, the court made clear that, in its view, its questions already adequately covered the subjects with which Zimny was concerned, that Zimny's proposals were overbroad or irrelevant, or that Zimny had been given ample opportunity to suggest general questions in the script-drafting process. Based on our review of the record, we conclude that the district court's questions adequately covered the relevant remand inquiry. Therefore, we see no abuse of discretion in either the district court's assessment of the presented questions or in the court's refusal to incorporate Zimny's pined-for questions into its juror probe.
Zimny faults the district court for not questioning Juror No. 8 a second time. The district court stated that it would call Juror No. 8 if we need [to], but deemed further questioning - 19 - of Juror No. 8 — recall the court had questioned her shortly after the verdict and before Zimny I — to be unnecessary in light of the testimony of the other thirteen jurors and the court's finding that no juror misconduct occurred. No hint of discretionary abuse here. Relatedly, Zimny argues that the district court improperly refused to question Richard Bradley, the host of the blog on which the additional-juror comment was posted. In Zimny's view, [i]t is reasonable to infer that Bradley knew, or could discover, who posted the additional[-]juror comment. That position appears to be based on the following reasoning:  On March 24, 2015, an anonymous commenter reported in a comment to the blog post that Bradley had been subpoenaed by defense counsel.  Two days later, in a different blog post, Bradley wrote: I did want to let folks know that, yes, as some of you have figured out, I was subpoenaed because of this blog. The subpoena . . . came as a result of comments made on a post about the trial of Mark Zimny . . . . In this post, Bradley voiced his frustration about the inconvenience of this ordeal.  Therefore, Zimny reasons, [a] reasonable inference is that Bradley communicated with one of his commenters about the [Juror No. 8] investigation. - 20 - We agree with the district court's assessment that there is no evidence in the record to support Zimny's assertion that Bradley might have knowledge about the identity of the author of the additional-juror comment. For starters, Zimny's assertion that Bradley was communicating with one of the commenters seems speculative; Bradley's blog post indicated that he was simply confirming what some of [the followers of his blog] ha[d] figured out. And, even if it's true that Bradley was communicating with one of the many commenters, it is once again pure speculation to assert that, simply because he might have been communicating with one person who commented on the blog, he therefore knew or could determine the identity of any of the commenters, including the author of the additional-juror comment. Moreover, even if Bradley might have had such knowledge, the district court questioned each of the jurors, and all denied ever seeing — let alone authoring — the additional-juror comment. In light of this clear and consistent testimony, the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to question Bradley.