Opinion ID: 3026413
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discharging Juror 11

Text: All appellants also assert that the District Court erred by dismissing Juror 11. We review the dismissal of a juror for cause for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Gambino, 788 F.2d 938, 949 (3d Cir. 1986). Here, the District Court acted within its discretion in discharging Juror 11. While it is undisputed that in certain circumstances, district courts may discharge a juror for cause during deliberations, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 23(b), we have yet to enunciate the appropriate standard.24 Any standard must accommodate two clashing interests. First, it is clear that “a court may not dismiss a juror during deliberations if the request for discharge stems from doubts the juror harbors about the sufficiency of the government’s evidence.” United States v. Brown, 823 F.2d 591, 596 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Any other rule would eviscerate the right to a unanimous verdict of guilt. See id. On the other hand, courts agree that a district court has the authority to dismiss a juror – even during deliberations – if “that juror refuses to apply the law or to follow the court’s instructions.” United States v. Abbell, 271 F.3d 1286, 1302 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). That is because “a juror who refuses to deliberate or who commits jury nullification violates the sworn jury oath and prevents the jury from fulfilling its constitutional role.” Boone, 458 F.3d at 329. While the jurisprudence discussing the discharge of jurors during deliberations has largely focused on a refusal to deliberate or jury nullification, its reasoning applies with equal force to claims 24 We expressly left this issue open in Boone. See 458 F.3d at 329 n.4. 72 of juror bias.25 Cf. Gov’t of V.I. v. Dowling, 814 F.2d 134, 139 (3d Cir. 1987) (“The trial court’s finding [of whether a juror is biased] is a finding of ‘historical fact: did a juror swear that he could set aside any opinion he might hold and decide the case on the evidence, and should the juror’s protestation of impartiality have been believed.’” (quoting Patton v. Yount, 467 U.S. 1025, 1036 (1984)). Because of the danger that a juror will be discharged based on that juror’s view of the evidence, courts “apply a tough legal standard.” Abbell, 271 F.3d at 1302. In Brown, for instance, the D.C. Circuit held that “if the record evidence discloses any possibility that the request to discharge stems from the juror’s view of the sufficiency of the government’s evidence, the court must deny the request.” 823 F.2d at 596. Similarly, in United States v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 1997), the Second Circuit adopted the “any possibility” standard set forth in Brown. Id. at 622. Subsequently, however, courts have slightly modified that language. The Ninth Circuit has held that “if the record evidence discloses any reasonable possibility that the impetus for a juror’s dismissal stems from the juror’s views on the merits of the case, the court must not dismiss the juror.” United States v. Symington, 195 F.3d 1080, 1087 (9th Cir. 1999). The court determined that it was necessary to include the word “reasonable,” given that “[i]t may be that ‘[a]nything is possible in a world of quantum mechanics.’” Id. at 1087 n.5 (second alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Watkins, 983 25 We note that in many instances of bias, a district court will be able to focus on the existence of a particular act that gives rise to the bias. See, e.g., United States v. Egbuniwe, 969 F.2d 757, 763 (9th Cir. 1992) (source of anti-prosecution bias stemmed from a particular incident of an alleged “false arrest and rough treatment of [a juror’s] girlfriend by law enforcement officers”). The rule we announce today does not apply to the type of bias that does not require the District Court to investigate a topic that implicates the secrecy of jury deliberations. See Symington, 195 F.3d at 1087 n.6; Thomas, 116 F.3d at 621. 73 F.2d 1413, 1424 (7th Cir. 1993) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting)). Similarly, in Abbell, the Eleventh Circuit held that “a juror should be excused only when no ‘substantial possibility’ exists that she is basing her decision on the sufficiency of the evidence.” 271 F.3d at 1302. The court explained that it meant for the standard to “be basically a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ standard,” that it intended district courts to apply the “substantial possibility” standard, and that it would then review the district courts’ factual findings for clear error. Id. at 1302-03. While there is a slight difference in the standards as expressed by the D.C. and Second Circuits as compared to the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, we believe that the difference is one of clarification and not disagreement. To the extent that there is a difference, we believe that the articulation of the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits is superior. That standard will allow us to avoid abstract “anything is possible” arguments, provide district courts with some leeway in handling difficult juror issues, and protect each party’s right to receive a verdict rendered by a jury that follows the law. At the same time, the standard is by no means lax: it corresponds with the burden for establishing guilt in a criminal trial, so we are confident that it will adequately ensure that jurors are not discharged simply because they are unimpressed by the evidence presented.26 We adopt such a high 26 The need for such a high standard prior to dismissal comes from a federal criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a unanimous jury verdict. If the Government is able to remove a holdout juror because of ambiguous allegations of improper behavior during deliberations, and replace this holdout with a more amenable juror, then the defendant’s constitutional right to a unanimous verdict has been violated. Put differently, each juror must find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We are convinced that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard best protects a defendant’s constitutional right to a unanimous verdict. A hypothetical illustrates our concerns. Assume that Juror X is a holdout. Assume that Juror X wants to vote to acquit the defendant. If a district court finds, by a mere preponderance of the evidence, that Juror X’s act of holding out is causally due to bias, then there is an up to 49% chance that Juror X’s belief in acquittal 74 standard in part because, as a result of our recent decision in Boone, a district court in the Third Circuit has more leeway to investigate juror misconduct than in other circuits. See, e.g., Symington, 195 F.3d at 1086; Thomas, 116 F.3d at 618-21; Brown, 823 F.2d at 596. Accordingly, we hold that the district courts may discharge a juror for bias, failure to deliberate, failure to follow the district court’s instructions, or jury nullification when there is no reasonable possibility that the allegations of misconduct stem from the juror’s view of the evidence. Here, the evidence supporting the District Court’s conclusion is overwhelming. The District Court carefully and correctly instructed the jurors on the distinction between permissible and impermissible bias, and during the final voir dire, ten jurors reported that Juror 11 was improperly biased.27 Significantly, the District Court ruled that Juror 11 was not credible, and we see no reason to upset that conclusion. See Kirk v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 61 F.3d 147, 153 (3d Cir. 1995) (stressing that “the district court should not rely simply on the is causally traced to Juror X’s belief in the defendant’s innocence. But if Juror X is removed from the jury, then the defendant loses out on having a holdout juror who legitimately (i.e., on the merits) believes that the government has not satisfied its “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. The only way to satisfy the defendant’s constitutional right to a unanimous verdict in the juror discharge context is to only permit removal when the District Court finds, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the holdout’s reasons were not related to the merits of the case. 27 We also note that, in this case at least, the final interview with the jurors controls the inquiry. Even though – among other complaints – the jurors claimed that Juror 11 was biased before the first voir dire and immediately after the second, the District Court never questioned the jury about this until the third voir dire. Thus, the third voir dire was the first chance for each juror to fully detail any concerns that he or she had about Juror 11's bias. Further, it was before the final voir dire that the District Court comprehensively distinguished between permissible and impermissible bias. 75 jurors’ subjective assessments of their own impartiality”); Abbell, 271 F.3d at 1303 (stating that “because the demeanor of the pertinent juror is important to juror misconduct determinations, the district court is uniquely situated to make the credibility determinations that must be made in cases like this one: where a juror’s motivations and intentions are at issue”). Even on the sterile record before us, the District Court’s conclusion is inescapable. Based on what the other jurors reported, it is simply unbelievable that Juror 11 really stated that FBI agents were among the most credible witnesses. Such a statement is so inconsistent with all the other reports that it tends to prove the opposite: that Juror 11 was indeed biased and constructed a post hoc story to try to obfuscate that bias. In addition to the refrain of allegations of bias, during the final voir dire eight jurors reported that Juror 11 was refusing to deliberate and ten jurors reported that Juror 11 was refusing to discuss the evidence. For instance, Juror 6, Juror 11's staunchest defender, reported that Juror 11 was deliberating and was not biased; however, even Juror 6 believed that Juror 11 was refusing to look at the evidence. A refusal to deliberate or discuss the evidence may well be a manifestation of underlying bias: if a juror makes up her mind based on beliefs formed before the trial began, she would have no reason to discuss the evidence with other jurors. Here, the vast majority of jurors concluded that Juror 11 acted inappropriately in those ways, too. We emphasize that the District Court removed Juror 11 because of her bias, and we therefore need not address whether the District Court would have abused its discretion if it removed Juror 11 on refusal to deliberate grounds rather than due to bias. Given that the “reasonable possibility” test we have adopted is similar to the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, analogizing this situation to a criminal proceeding is useful. We have little doubt that if ten or 11 out of 12 witnesses testified against a defendant, and the defendant testified in a patently unbelievable manner, the jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Similarly, under the circumstances presented here, we conclude that the District Court appropriately exercised its discretion in concluding that there was no reasonable possibility that the allegations against Juror 11 were based on her 76 view of the evidence. Our decision comports with the leading cases to consider the discharge of a juror during deliberations. Those that reversed the District Court’s decision to discharge involved much more equivocal evidence of misconduct. For instance, in Brown, upon questioning a juror who claimed that he was unable to perform his duty and apply the law, the juror revealed that he had a problem with “the way [the RICO statute was] written and the way the evidence has been presented,” and that “[i]f the evidence was presented in a fashion in which the law is written, then, maybe, I would be able to discharge my duties.” 823 F.2d at 592-94. That response, which was uncontradicted on the record, clearly points to the juror’s view of the evidence. Similarly, in Thomas, the jurors presented varying explanations of the nature of their problem with the other juror. 116 F.3d at 623-24. Five jurors stated that the juror at issue was unyieldingly in favor of acquitting the defendants, either because the defendants were “his people,” because the defendants were “good people,” or because the defendants committed the crime out of economic necessity. Id. at 611. On the other hand, five jurors linked the juror at issue’s reticence to convict to his views about the evidence – one juror stated that the juror was discussing the evidence, and four others stated that he had found the evidence insufficient or unreliable. Id. The true basis for the juror’s feelings was thus unclear, and accordingly, the court concluded that the district court erred in discharging him. Id. at 624. Meanwhile, in Abbell, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to discharge a juror where the court explained that early on in the process the juror at issue had made comments about not having to follow the law, and even after the court gave corrective instructions, the majority of the other jurors still reported that the other juror would not consider the evidence or discuss the law. 271 F.3d at 1303-04. The juror at issue’s “own testimony on her commitment to following the law was not certain.” Id. at 1304. While only a majority of jurors stated that the discharged juror was not engaging in deliberations, id. at 1303-04, the juror’s own statements revealed 77 her inability to follow the oath she took as a juror. The instant case is much more similar to Abbell than Brown and Thomas. The District Court carefully and patiently examined the jurors on multiple occasions to isolate the root of the allegations of misconduct. After the District Court received near-unanimous reports that Juror 11 was biased, and after hearing a manifestly incredible rendition from Juror 11, the Court discharged Juror 11. The evidence was so overwhelming that Juror 11 was biased that it would have been “a dereliction of duty for a judge to remain indifferent.” Thomas, 116 F.3d at 616. Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court’s decision to discharge Juror 11.