Opinion ID: 5648768
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Juror Bias: Remmer

Text: In Remmer, the Supreme Court held that a prima facie showing of juror bias—such as an allegation of “any private communication, contact, or tampering directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury” in a criminal case—entitles a defendant to a hearing, awards to the defendant a presumption of prejudice, and places on the Government the burden of showing that the contact was harmless. Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229. The Court followed up in Smith v. Phillips: “This Court has long held that the remedy for allegations of juror partiality is a hearing in which the defendant has the opportunity to prove actual bias.” 455 U.S. 209, 215 (1982) (emphasis added). Put another way, the Phillips Court reaffirmed Remmer’s core holding that a showing of juror bias demands a hearing. See United States v. Zelinka, 862 F.2d 92, 94–95 (6th Cir. 1988); United States v. Herndon, 156 F.3d 629, 635 (6th Cir. 1998). Subsequent Supreme Court decisions that address Remmer hearings confirm as much. See, e.g., United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 738–39 (1993); Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 119–20 (1983). The courts of appeals were forced to grapple with whether Phillips shifted the burden of proof at a Remmer hearing from the Government to the defendant and whether the presumption of prejudice survived Phillips. Every other circuit maintains that the Government shoulders the burden at a Remmer hearing of showing that the alleged juror bias was harmless and has reaffirmed that defendants are awarded a presumption of prejudice at that hearing. See B. Samantha Helgason, Opening Pandora’s Jury Box, 89 FORDHAM L. REV. 231, 242–43, 249–50 (2020); Sheppard v. Bagley, 657 F.3d 338, 350 n.1 (6th Cir. 2011) (Merritt, J., dissenting) (collecting cases). We charted our own course. In Zelinka, we reiterated that Remmer “outlined Nos. 11-3005/20-3429 Cunningham v. Shoop Page 10 the procedure that district courts should follow when advised of unauthorized contacts with a juror”— The trial court should not decide and take final action ex parte on information such as was received in this case, but should determine the circumstances, the impact thereof upon the juror, and whether or not it was prejudicial, in a hearing with all interested parties permitted to participate. Zelinka, 862 F.2d at 94–95 (quoting Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229–30). We nonetheless concluded that Phillips shifted the burden of showing bias at Remmer hearings to defendants and stripped defendants of the presumption of prejudice. See id. at 95–96. Notwithstanding, we still guarantee defendants a “meaningful opportunity” to demonstrate juror bias, United States v. Lanier, 988 F.3d 284, 295 (6th Cir. 2021) (quoting Herndon, 156 F.3d at 637), and maintain that bias may be actual (“bias in fact”) or implied (“employ[ing] a conclusive presumption that a juror is biased” in “certain ‘extreme’ or ‘exceptional’ cases”), Treesh v. Bagley, 612 F.3d 424, 437 (6th Cir. 2010) (citations omitted).