Opinion ID: 4208659
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Faded Memories

Text: 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.