Opinion ID: 792809
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The interests of justice

Text: 74 Defendants challenge the District Court's denial of three separate motions for a new trial that were based on allegations of (i) false testimony by the Government's ink expert, (ii) juror bias, and (iii) extraneous influences on the jury. A district court may vacate a judgment of conviction and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires. Fed.R.Crim.P. 33. We review the District Court's decision to deny Defendants' Rule 33 motions for abuse of discretion, upholding findings of fact that were made in the course of deciding the motions unless they are clearly erroneous. See, e.g., United States v. Wong, 78 F.3d 73, 78-79 (2d Cir.1996).

75 Defendants each seek a new trial or, in the alternative, an evidentiary hearing, based on alleged prejudice arising from the introduction of false testimony given by the Government's expert witness. 76 During its case in chief, the Government called Lawrence F. Stewart, 6 a civilian employee of the United States Secret Service and its Laboratory Director and Chief Forensic Scientist, to give an expert opinion regarding the worksheet that Bacanovic described in his testimony before the SEC as having been prepared on December 20th when he and Stewart reviewed her portfolio. The worksheet is a one-page document that listed each stock in Stewart's personal Merrill Lynch account and identified the market price as well as its unrealized gain or loss in position. Various handwritten notations, including circles, checks, and stock symbols appear on the page. In addition, to the right of the entry describing ImClone was the notation @60. Bacanovic testified on February 13, 2002, that the document demonstrated that Stewart sold her stock on December 27th pursuant to an earlier decision to liquidate if the per share price dropped to $60. 77 The original worksheet was sent to the Secret Service Forensic Services Division (FSD) where the ink that produced the handwritten notations was analyzed. At trial, Lawrence described himself as the only national expert for ink. He testified that laboratory tests were performed — first in July and August 2002, and again in January 2004 — to determine whether the ink used in the @60 notation was consistent with the ink in other notations on the page. Lawrence testified that the test results led him to conclude that the ink used to make the @60 notation, which appeared next to the ImClone entry, differed from the ink used to make the other notations that he was able to test, all of which had been made with a type of Paper Mate pen. The Government offered Lawrence's testimony to demonstrate that the @60 notation was not contemporaneous with the other notations on the page and therefore tended to prove that Bacanovic altered the document and that he and Stewart concocted the @60 stop-loss order story after the fact when the flaws in the tax loss story came to light. 78 The defense offered the testimony of Dr. Albert Lyter, a forensic chemist specializing in the analysis of inks and papers. There was little disagreement in the two experts' conclusions. Both testified that it was likely that the marks other than the @60 and a small dash at the end of the Apple Computer entry had been produced by a Paper Mate pen, that the ink used to make the @60 mark was unusual and from an unidentifiable source, and that the timing of the various marks could not be determined reliably through testing. Lyter's conclusion, however, departed from Lawrence's in two respects. First, Lyter concluded that the @60 notation and the Apple Computer dash had been made by the same pen, whereas Lawrence concluded that the @60 ink differed from the ink used for other notations on the page but, because he had not tested the dash, he had made no conclusion regarding its source. Second, Lyter testified that use of a device known as a densitometer revealed batch variations, which indicated that at least two different ball point pens had been used to make the remaining notations on the page. The Government recalled Lawrence to answer questions about the use of densitometry. He testified that the densitometer was not sufficiently accurate to ascertain variations among different batches of the same ink recipe with reasonable reliability. 79 Several months after the jury returned its verdict, the Government announced that an investigation had revealed that Lawrence had made false material statements in the testimony he gave in Stewart's and Bacanovic's trial. He was indicted on June 9, 2004 on two counts of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623 relating to his testimony that he had personally participated in the forensic tests about which he testified and that he was familiar with a book proposal drafted by his colleagues, and knew that it included a chapter on densitometry. 80 Defendants contend that, in light of the perjury charges, reversal of their convictions should be virtually automatic because the Government knew or should have known at the time of trial that Lawrence's testimony was false. They argue alternatively that the District Court erred in failing to hold an evidentiary hearing on the issue of the Government's knowledge. We disagree.
81 We have frequently acknowledged that, even where newly discovered evidence indicates perjury, motions for new trials should be granted only with great caution and in the most extraordinary circumstances. United States v. Sanchez, 969 F.2d 1409, 1414 (2d Cir.1992); accord United States v. Spencer, 4 F.3d 115, 118 (2d Cir.1993); United States v. DiPaolo, 835 F.2d 46, 49 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. Stofsky, 527 F.2d 237, 243 (2d Cir.1975); United States v. Costello, 255 F.2d 876, 879 (2d Cir.1958). So cautioned, the trial court's discretion to decide whether newly discovered evidence warrants a new trial is broad because its vantage point as to the determinative factor — whether newly discovered evidence would have influenced the jury — has been informed by the trial over which it presided. See United States v. Gambino, 59 F.3d 353, 364 (2d Cir.1995) (recognizing that the trial court's Rule 33 ruling is deferred to on appeal because, having presided over the trial, it is in a better position to decide what effect the newly discovered materials might have had on the jury).

82 [W]hen the newly discovered evidence focuses on the perjury of a witness, a threshold inquiry is whether the evidence demonstrates that the witness in fact committed perjury. United States v. White, 972 F.2d 16, 20 (2d Cir.1992). When the District Court denied Defendants' requests for a new trial, it assumed that Lawrence perjured himself. Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 615. At the time, Lawrence had been indicted on perjury charges arising from his testimony in this matter, but had not been convicted. Id. We will make the same assumption for purposes of this appeal, noting that the propriety of that approach is not altered by Lawrence's subsequent acquittal, which does not establish that Lawrence's trial testimony was true, but only that the Government did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his testimony was false.
83 Perjury in and of itself is insufficient to justify relief under Rule 33. White, 972 F.2d at 22 (the mere fact that [the witness] lied on the witness stand does not automatically entitle [defendant] to a new trial). Rather, when a trial has been tainted by false testimony, this Court is called upon to strike a fair balance between the need for both integrity and finality in criminal prosecutions by determining whether false testimony was prejudicial in the sense that it affected the outcome of the trial. Stofsky, 527 F.2d at 239. To do so, we assess the materiality of the perjury to the verdict and are guided by two standards which are based on the extent of the government's awareness of the false testimony prior to the conclusion of the trial. United States v. Wallach, 935 F.2d 445, 456 (2d Cir.1991). 84 If the prosecution knew or should have known of the perjury prior to the conclusion of the trial, the conviction must be set aside where there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The knowing introduction of false testimony will lead to virtually automatic reversal. Id. The standard applicable to the knowing introduction of false testimony serves the dual purposes of discouraging prosecutorial misconduct and providing relief from an unfair conviction. See United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 104, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). On the other hand, if the prosecution was not aware of the perjury, a defendant can obtain a new trial only where the false testimony leads to a firm belief that but for the perjured testimony, the defendant would most likely not have been convicted. Wallach, 935 F.2d at 456 (internal quotation marks omitted). 85 Defendants advance two theories for virtually automatic reversal of their convictions, arguing that the Government knew or should have known that Lawrence's testimony was false. First, Defendants contend that, as part of the prosecution team, Lawrence's own knowledge or that of his FSD colleagues should be imputed to the Government. They do not assert that evidence in the record demonstrates that the prosecutors actually knew that Lawrence was lying. Alternatively, Defendants contend that red flags should have alerted the prosecutors to Lawrence's lies.
86 As the Government points out, this Court has not expressly recognized or rejected the imputation principle in the context of a new trial motion based on evidence of perjured testimony. Nor do we have occasion to do so now. Without dismissing the possibility that there are circumstances in which it may be fair to impute the knowledge of certain persons to prosecutors as if it were their own, we find that the District Court did not err in concluding that those circumstances are not present here. 87 Drawing on Supreme Court authority holding that Brady obligations extend to all persons acting on the government's behalf, Defendants urge that the scope of the prosecution team should be similarly construed to impute government agents' false testimony to the prosecutors themselves. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995); see also Wedra v. Thomas, 671 F.2d 713, 717 n. 1 (2d Cir.1982) (noting that the knowledge of a police officer may be attributable to the prosecutor if the officer acted as an arm of the prosecution). According to Defendants, because Lawrence was a government official working in conjunction with the prosecution, it is fair to attribute his knowledge of the perjured testimony, or that of other FSD employees, to the Government. But our determination of whether to deem an individual to be an arm of the prosecution for Brady purposes does not follow the broad, categorical approach urged by Defendants. Instead, the propriety of imputing knowledge to the prosecution is determined by examining the specific circumstances of the person alleged to be an arm of the prosecutor. United States v. Morell, 524 F.2d 550, 555 (2d Cir.1975). It does not turn on the status of the person with actual knowledge, such as a law enforcement officer, prosecutor or other government official. In other words, the relevant inquiry is what the person did, not who the person is. See id. (imputing law enforcement agent's knowledge of confidential file to prosecutors where agent supervised the witness, participated actively in the investigation and frequently sat at counsel table throughout the trial); see also United States v. Sanchez, 813 F.Supp. 241, 247-48 (S.D.N.Y.1993) (imputing to prosecutor knowledge of perjury of local police officers who were deputized as federal agents and worked as part of investigative task force), aff'd on other grounds, 35 F.3d 673 (2d Cir.1994); Pina v. Henderson, 752 F.2d 47, 49 (2d Cir.1985) (refusing to apply the descriptive term of arm of the prosecutor to parole officer who did not work in conjunction with the police or the prosecutor). 88 We do not agree with Defendants that the District Court dismissed the imputation argument as applicable only to law enforcement officials who were involved with the investigation. Rather, in finding that Lawrence acted as an ordinary expert witness and not as part of the prosecution team, the District Court properly analyzed what Lawrence actually did and did not do in connection with the investigation and subsequent judicial proceedings. Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 616-18. The District Court's factual findings, which are not clearly erroneous, demonstrate that Lawrence's role was limited to matters concerning his area of expertise — ink. In that regard, Lawrence analyzed a single document, explained the forensic ink tests that had been performed, discussed potential testimony by the defense ink expert, assisted prosecutors to develop cross-examination questions addressing certain technical aspects of ink testing, and participated in a mock examination on ink issues to prepare for trial. His testimony at trial related only to his credentials, the tests that were performed and the conclusions he drew from them. None of this suggests that Lawrence was in any way involved with the investigation or presentation of the case to the grand jury. He did not interview witnesses or gather facts, nor, with the exception of the @60 worksheet, did he review documents or develop prosecutorial strategy. 89 Lawrence acted only in the capacity of an expert witness, as the District Court found, and not as a fully functioning member of the prosecution team, as Defendants suggest. The fact that Lawrence was a government employee does not alter that conclusion, which applies with even more force to the other laboratory employees whose participation was similarly limited in scope and less extensive than Lawrence's. These circumstances, therefore, do not justify attributing to the prosecutors, as if it was their own, knowledge that Lawrence or other FSD personnel possessed.
90 Alternatively, Defendants urge that even if the prosecutors did not in fact know that Lawrence lied, they should have been alerted to the possibility that he made misrepresentations as a result of certain matters that arose prior to and during the trial. We are not left with any inclination, much less a `definite and firm conviction,' that the District Court made a mistake, United States v. Garcia, 413 F.3d 201, 222 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948)), when it found that the record does not indicate that prosecutors negligently ignored indications that Lawrence overstated his participation in initial ink tests. See Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 618-19 (noting that Defendants do not contend that there were red flags that should have caused the Government to suspect that Lawrence would lie about being aware of his colleagues' book proposal). The record fully supports the District Court's finding that the Government did not fail to properly utilize the available information where (i) the absence of Lawrence's name on the 2002 forensic report was not necessarily suspicious, nor was it inconsistent with his representation that he worked with another FSD employee, Susan Fortunato; (ii) Lawrence's and Fortunato's explanations of their initial failure to test the ink content of the Apple Computer dash did nothing to put prosecutors on notice that Lawrence would later misrepresent the extent of his participation in the 2002 testing; and (iii) Fortunato's description of an initial meeting with prosecutors does not establish that she informed them that she alone conducted the ink testing. Id. (quoting Wallach, 935 F.2d at 457). 91 The District Court did not err in finding that the facts did not demonstrate that the Government knew or should have known that Lawrence's testimony was false. There is no indication that the false testimony was introduced as a result of prosecutorial misconduct.
92 Ultimately, whether the prosecution was aware of the alleged perjury is of no moment, because we conclude that the testimony in question was not material under either standard. That is to say, whether we ask if the verdict might have been different or if it probably would have been different had the jurors known (i) the truth about Lawrence's involvement in the ink testing and his awareness of his colleagues' book proposal discussing densitometry and (ii) that Lawrence had lied under oath about those matters, the answer is no. Therefore, we conclude that the District Court did not err in finding that Lawrence's false statements were not material either as to the factual elements of the Government's case or for impeachment value, had the misrepresentations been exposed at trial. See Stofsky, 527 F.2d at 246. 93 Lawrence's testimony did not influence the verdict on the counts of conviction. It pertained exclusively to Bacanovic's @60 worksheet and was used by the Government to support its position that the $60 stop-loss agreement was an after-the-fact fabrication. The jury acquitted Defendants of all of the counts and specifications relating to the existence of the agreement. Because the Government failed to persuade the jury to convict on the only counts to which Lawrence's testimony related, that testimony cannot be considered capable of materially affecting the verdict on the counts to which it had no relevance. See White, 972 F.2d at 22 (determining that perjury was not material where defendant was acquitted of all charges that depended solely on perjurer's testimony). Furthermore, the perjury was collateral to the substance of Lawrence's own testimony — it did not concern the validity of the tests that were conducted or his conclusions, which were largely corroborated by the defense expert. 94 Where, as here, independent evidence supports a defendant's conviction, the subsequent discovery that a witness's testimony at trial was perjured will not warrant a new trial. Wong, 78 F.3d at 82 (citing United States v. Reyes, 49 F.3d 63, 68 (2d Cir.1995)). The District Court found that the jury convicted defendants of lies that had nothing to do with the $60 agreement. Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 619. We see no reason to disturb the District Court's finding that ample evidence unrelated to Lawrence's testimony or to the $60 stop-loss agreement supported the verdict on the counts of conviction. See, e.g., Wong, 78 F.3d at 78-79 (factual findings in connection with denial of motion for new trial upheld unless clearly erroneous). As to Martha Stewart, the verdict of conviction was based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Stewart lied to investigators (i) when she told them that she spoke to Bacanovic on December 27th and instructed him to sell her ImClone shares, (ii) she could not remember whether she was told about Waksal's efforts to sell his shares, (iii) she sold the stock when she did so because she did not want to be bothered during her vacation, (iv) she discussed MSLO and K-Mart with Bacanovic on December 27th, and (v) she did not discuss the investigations with Bacanovic. See Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 619. As to Bacanovic, the jury found that he lied when he told investigators that he spoke to Stewart on December 27th and when he described a message he left with Armstrong for Stewart that only gave the price of ImClone shares. See id. at 619-20. 95 Like the District Court, we find that it is not possible, much less probable, that the jurors would have acquitted Stewart and Bacanovic of these charges and specifications had they known about Lawrence's limited participation in the ink testing, his awareness of his colleagues' book proposal or even his alleged attempt to cover up the real reason that the Apple Computer dash was not tested by FSD in July 2002. These simply cannot be matters that would `create[ ] a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist' concerning the factual elements of the counts of conviction. United States v. Gambino, 59 F.3d 353, 365 (2d Cir.1995) (quoting Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112, 96 S.Ct. 2392). Nevertheless, Defendants advance a number of theories for concluding that revelation of the perjury would have resulted in a full acquittal, none of which is persuasive. 96 Exposure of the false testimony would not have added impeachment value sufficient to change the outcome of the trial. Gambino, 59 F.3d at 364 (Rule 33 relief justified only if newly discovered evidence is of a type that could change the verdict). Significantly, the District Court observed that the importance of the @60 agreement and Lawrence's testimony took on inflated importance as the centerpiece and core theory of the prosecution only after his false testimony came to light. Stewart, 323 F.Supp.2d at 620; cf. Wallach, 935 F.2d at 457-58 (determining that a new trial was necessary because lies of key witness who tied all the pieces together, even as to matters affecting only his credibility, could have caused the jury to reject his entire testimony and eliminate the foundation for conviction). Judge Cedarbaum obviously was in the best position to appraise the possible effect of the challenged testimony on the outcome of the trial because [a]fter all, Judge [Cedarbaum] was at the trial. We were not. United States v. Provenzano, 615 F.2d 37, 49 (2d Cir.1980). 97 In a further effort to bridge the great gulf between Lawrence's testimony and the counts of conviction, Defendants suggest that revelation of the perjury could have affected the verdict either by bolstering the jury's confidence in Defendants' position, exposing a lack of confidence by the Government in its own case or impeaching other Government witnesses by extension. These arguments are speculative and unpersuasive. Defendants offer nothing more than wishful conjecture that disclosure of Lawrence's lies would have endowed the @60 agreement with some amorphous plus factor capable of translating the jury's implicit recognition of the existence of the @60 agreement into a conclusion that it was the sole motivating factor for Stewart's ImClone sale. In addition, without endorsing Defendants' theory that Government fact witnesses could have been impugned by association with Lawrence, we note that newly discovered evidence of perjury that serves only to impeach credibility is generally insufficient to justify a new trial. See Reyes, 49 F.3d at 68. In any event, Defendants do not explain how Lawrence's false testimony would have diminished the credibility of Glotzer, Farmer, or any of the other witnesses called by the Government. 98 As a final point, we do not agree that the Government's indictment of Lawrence for perjury constitutes a concession that his perjury was material. Defendants argue that having charged Lawrence with making false material statements at Defendants' trial, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623, the Government should be precluded from denying the materiality of the false statements to resist a Rule 33 motion. There is no authority for that proposition, and the consequence of Defendants' reasoning would be that any prosecution of an individual for giving perjured testimony in a criminal proceeding would lead to a new trial regardless of whether the perjury had any effect on the jury's verdict. That result is inconsistent with our rejection of a Rule 33 standard that would require reversal when the perjury went only to an immaterial aspect of the proof. Sanders v. Sullivan, 863 F.2d 218, 226 (2d Cir.1988) (reflecting upon Stofsky, 527 F.2d at 245, in which the Court discussed its discomfort with a test that require[s] reversal in cases of perjury with respect to even minor matters). The need for a new trial depends on the effect of the perjury on the verdict, see Stofsky, 527 F.2d at 243-47, whereas materiality for purposes of a section 1623 prosecution is whether the false testimony was capable of influencing the fact finder in deciding the issues before [it], United States v. Guariglia, 962 F.2d 160, 164 (2d Cir.1992) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted; alteration in original). 99 The standards for assessing materiality in the two contexts reflect the different purposes effectuated by the rule and the statute. The materiality inquiry in a Rule 33 motion focuses on the ultimate outcome of the trial because the objective of the rule is to relieve a defendant of the unfairness that results when false testimony contributes to a verdict of conviction. See Stofsky, 527 F.2d at 239 (affirming conviction where alleged perjury was not sufficiently significant to have unfairly tainted verdict). Section 1623, on the other hand, serves to deter and punish false testimony and may be based more broadly on any matter before the jury. See United States v. Reed, 773 F.2d 477, 483 (2d Cir.1985) (observing that section 1623 facilitates intent to deter perjury and enhance reliability of testimony); United States v. Gugliaro, 501 F.2d 68, 71-72 (2d Cir.1974) (misstatement of fact need not be `dispositive' of the inquiry in question to be material in perjury prosecution (quoting United States v. Birrell, 470 F.2d 113, 115 n. 1 (2d Cir.1972))). 100 In sum, we find that the interests of justice do not require a new trial because Lawrence's false testimony did not result in unfairness to Defendants. The District Court did not err in finding that there is no reasonable possibility, much less a probability, that the jury's decision to convict Defendants for lying about their various communications on and after December 27th would have been different if the jurors had known the facts that Lawrence concealed or had known that Lawrence lied under oath. Nor did the District Court abuse its discretion by denying Rule 33 relief without convening an evidentiary hearing to ascertain the extent of the Government's awareness of the perjury. Where, as here, the additional evidence of perjury is not sufficiently material to undermine confidence in the verdict, there is no need to probe the extent of the Government's awareness of the perjury because the argument fails under either standard. See White, 972 F.2d at 22 (holding that where it is not necessary to resolve the issues that might be the focus of an evidentiary hearing, the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to conduct an evidentiary hearing). The District Court's denial of Defendants' Rule 33 motions based on Lawrence's testimony is affirmed in all respects.
101 Defendants charge that the District Court erred by denying Rule 33 relief without holding an evidentiary hearing on alleged juror misconduct. Defendants claim that evidence indicating that juror Chappell Hartridge gave false voir dire responses justified further inquiry into his ability to be fair and impartial. Bacanovic makes the additional argument that a new trial, or at least an evidentiary hearing, is warranted because post-verdict public statements by Hartridge and other jurors demonstrate that matters outside of the record improperly influenced the verdict of conviction.
102 Post-trial jury scrutiny is disfavored because of its potential to undermine full and frank discussion in the jury room, jurors' willingness to return an unpopular verdict, and the community's trust in a system that relies on the decisions of laypeople. Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 120-21, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987). Accordingly, probing jurors for potential instances of bias, misconduct or extraneous influences after they have reached a verdict is justified only when reasonable grounds for investigation exist, in other words, where there is clear, strong, substantial and incontrovertible evidence that a specific, nonspeculative impropriety has occurred which could have prejudiced the trial. United States v. Moon, 718 F.2d 1210, 1234 (2d Cir.1983) (citing King v. United States, 576 F.2d 432, 438 (2d Cir.1978)). The inquiry should end whenever it becomes apparent to the trial judge that reasonable grounds to suspect prejudicial jury impropriety do not exist. Id. 103 We review for abuse of discretion the District Court's Rule 33 decision regarding the effect on the jury of potentially prejudicial occurrences. Id. at 1235.

104 Reviewing the District Court's denial of Rule 33 relief based on alleged juror bias, we are mindful of the principle that 105 [o]ne touchstone of a fair trial is an impartial trier of fact — a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it. Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217, 102 S.Ct. 940, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982). Voir dire examination serves to protect that right by exposing possible biases, both known and unknown, on the part of potential jurors. Demonstrated bias in the responses to questions on voir dire may result in a juror being excused for cause; hints of bias not sufficient to warrant challenge for cause may assist parties in exercising their peremptory challenges. The necessity of truthful answers by prospective jurors if this process is to serve its purpose is obvious. 106 McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 554, 104 S.Ct. 845, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984). These concerns are reflected in the McDonough standard for analyzing allegations that a juror's false voir dire concealed bias that affected the fairness of the trial: a party alleging unfairness based on undisclosed juror bias must demonstrate first, that the juror's voir dire response was false and second, that the correct response would have provided a valid basis for a challenge for cause. See McDonough, 464 U.S. at 556, 104 S.Ct. 845. The District Court observed that this Court has never found reason to overturn a verdict on the basis of juror nondisclosure under McDonough and only once, see United States v. Colombo, 869 F.2d 149 (2d Cir.1989), has remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the matter. See United States v. Stewart, 317 F.Supp.2d 432, 437 (S.D.N.Y.2004). Our ruling here does not change those statistics. 107 Prompted by the extensive publicity surrounding this case, the District Court undertook a two-step voir dire process. First, prospective jurors completed a questionnaire drafted by the parties. Then, following for-cause challenges based on the questionnaire responses, those persons remaining in the jury pool were questioned individually. The questionnaire probed prospective jurors' prior involvement with the justice system by asking about court appearances and whether the individual or someone close to him or her had filed criminal charges, had been the victim of a crime, had been sued, accused of wrongdoing on a job, or questioned by law enforcement or accused of, charged with, or convicted of any crime. 108 Hartridge's questionnaire reflected that he had appeared in court in connection with a dispute with his landlord, but he gave negative responses to the other questions described above. He returned for individual questioning and was subsequently empaneled. Shortly after the jury's verdict was announced, Hartridge and several other jurors discussed their experience as jurors with the press. According to Defendants, at that time the defense received information calling into question the manner in which Hartridge got on the jury. 109 In their motions for a new trial, Defendants alleged that Hartridge's failure to disclose the following five matters on his questionnaire concealed probable bias: (i) an arrest and arraignment for assault of a former girlfriend; (ii) civil suits against Hartridge and members of his family; (iii) his son's conviction for attempted robbery; (iv) an accusation of embezzlement in his capacity as a Little League volunteer treasurer; and (v) termination for cause from employment with Citibank. As support, Defendants proffered affidavits, only one of which was based on personal knowledge, and court records. The District Court found that the majority of Defendants' allegations did not satisfy the first prong of the McDonough test because they rested on little more than hearsay, speculation, and in one instance, vague allegations made by a person who refused to identify himself. Stewart, 317 F.Supp.2d at 438. The District Court also found that certain ambiguities in the voir dire questions developed by the parties made it unclear that Hartridge's responses deliberately concealed the truth. Id. As to those alleged failures to disclose, this was not the type of showing that constitutes reasonable grounds for investigation. Moon, 718 F.2d at 1234. 110 The District Court credited Defendants with raising serious questions concerning deliberate concealment of two matters that Hartridge did not disclose, namely, the conviction of Hartridge's son for attempted robbery in 2000 and a civil judgment against Hartridge and his wife in 1997, both of which were supported by objective evidence. Stewart, 317 F.Supp.2d at 441-42. But the District Court found that none of the alleged omissions satisfied the second part of the McDonough test, which requires the party seeking a new trial to demonstrate that the correct answer at jury selection would have provided a valid basis to challenge the prospective juror for cause. McDonough, 464 U.S. at 556, 104 S.Ct. 845. To do so, the district court must determine if it would have granted the hypothetical challenge. United States v. Greer, 285 F.3d 158, 171 (2d Cir.2002). Its determination is reviewed for abuse of discretion and, in that regard, we have noted that `[t]here are few aspects of a jury trial where we would be less inclined to disturb a trial judge's exercise of discretion, absent clear abuse, than in ruling on challenges for cause in the empanelling of a jury.' Id. at 172 (quoting United States v. Ploof, 464 F.2d 116, 118 n. 4 (2d Cir.1972)). 111 Defendants contend that the juror's multiple failures to disclose background information indicate a suspicious pattern sufficient to raise doubts about his impartiality which justifies further inquiry in a hearing. For this proposition, Defendants cite a decision in which the Ninth Circuit observed that certain false statements that might be harmless in isolation may present a much more sinister picture when viewed as a whole. Green v. White, 232 F.3d 671, 678 n. 10 (9th Cir.2000). The assertion that Hartridge engaged in a pattern of lies ignores the District Court's finding, which is not clearly erroneous, that only two of the alleged intentional omissions were supported with the type of evidence that justifies further inquiry. In Green, the Ninth Circuit found error in the trial court's finding of no bias where the juror not only lied twice about his background but gave misleading and false explanations when confronted with the lies and also made comments ( i.e., that he knew the defendant was guilty on first sight) that left little doubt as to his inability to render a fair verdict. Id. at 677-78. In this case, the allegations form a pattern that might create destructive uncertainties about Hartridge's indifference if they were proved, id. at 676 (quoting Dyer v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 970, 983 (9th Cir.1998) (in banc)), but the Defendants' proffer is insufficient as to all but two of those allegations. 7 The significant factor, however, is that the District Court found that even if it were established that Hartridge's responses were false as alleged, none of the correct answers would have supported an inference that he was biased or prejudiced against Stewart and Bacanovic or had prejudged the evidence. See Stewart, 317 F.Supp.2d at 443. 112 Nor is Colombo to the contrary. In Colombo, a district court's decision to refuse Rule 33 relief on the basis of alleged false voir dire responses was vacated and the case was remanded for an evidentiary hearing. Colombo, 869 F.2d at 150. The alleged false responses asserted by Stewart and Bacanovic differ distinctly from the ones at issue in Colombo. There, the defendant's Rule 33 motion was supported by an alternate juror's affidavit, which stated that one of the jurors (i) confided that she failed to disclose that her brother was a government attorney because she feared the relationship would make her ineligible to serve on the jury and (ii) asserted familiarity with one of the conspirators' meeting places as a hang out for gangsters. Id. In Colombo, it was not simply that the lies in question were deliberate, but that the deliberateness of the particular lies evidenced partiality.  Greer, 285 F.3d at 172-73 (discussing Colombo ). Thus, where the Colombo affiant specifically asserted that the juror admitted not only concealment, but concealment of facts from which specific bias could be inferred, the alleged lies, if established, would demonstrate both dishonesty and partiality and would satisfy both prongs of the McDonough test. Id. That is not the case here. 113 Defendants note that all of the jury bias cases cited by the District Court involved post-trial hearings. See Greer, 285 F.3d at 166; United States v. Shaoul, 41 F.3d 811, 814-15 (2d Cir.1994); United States v. Langford, 990 F.2d 65, 67 (2d Cir.1993). In the present case, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to conduct a hearing because it found that even if all of the allegations were established by competent evidence, none would provide valid grounds to challenge for cause Hartridge's membership on the jury. While an evidentiary hearing is not held to afford a convicted defendant the opportunity to `conduct a fishing expedition,' Moon, 718 F.2d at 1234 (quoting United States v. Moten, 582 F.2d 654, 667 (2d Cir.1978)), it is possible, even plausible, that a district court's decision to hold a hearing under these circumstances would not have licensed such an expedition. We therefore caution district courts that, if any significant doubt as to a juror's impartiality remains in the wake of objective evidence of false voir dire responses, an evidentiary hearing generally should be held. Cf. United States v. Boney, 977 F.2d 624, 634 (D.C.Cir.1992) (recommending that an evidentiary hearing be held under most circumstances, including a juror's lying about his felony status, but declining to hold that any false statement or deliberate concealment by a juror necessitates an evidentiary hearing). Such a hearing is often the most reliable way for discerning the true motivations behind a juror's false replies. See Smith, 455 U.S. at 215, 102 S.Ct. 940 ([T]he remedy for allegations of juror partiality is a hearing in which the defendant has the opportunity to prove actual bias.). Here, however, although we might have ruled differently on the hearing request in the first instance, we cannot say that the District Court's decision was an abuse of discretion. See Moon, 718 F.2d at 1235.
114 During the course of a televised interview shortly after the verdict was returned, jurors were asked what they thought about the testimony of Stewart's friend, Mariana Pasternak. Their responses give rise to Bacanovic's argument that the jury impermissibly considered matters outside the record in reaching the verdict as to him. 115 During direct examination by the Government, Pasternak testified that while vacationing with Stewart at the end of December 2001, she recall[ed] Martha saying that [Sam Waksal's] stock is going down, or went down, and I sold mine. When asked whether she recollected speaking with Stewart about brokers during the vacation, Pasternak replied, I remember one brief statement, which was: `Isn't it nice to have brokers who tell you those things.' Pasternak was then asked if she knew who Stewart's broker was and she replied I know that Peter Bacanovic was Martha's broker. The District Court instructed the jury that the testimony could be considered only in connection with the charges against Stewart. On cross-examination, Pasternak stated that she could not remember with certainty whether the statements she attributed to Stewart were actually made by Stewart or whether they were Pasternak's own thoughts. Bacanovic's motion for a mistrial was denied, and prior to cross-examination of Pasternak, the District Court instructed the jury as follows: 116 Testimony about what Martha Stewart told Ms. Pasternak is received in evidence only with respect to Martha Stewart. None of the statements of Martha Stewart to Ms. Pasternak that you heard yesterday afternoon are received in evidence against Peter Bacanovic, and it is not evidence against Peter Bacanovic. So that remember I told you at the beginning of the trial that guilt is personal, that you must separately consider each defendant and each charge. In considering the charges against Peter Bacanovic, you may not consider the testimony about those statements of Martha Stewart to Ms. Pasternak in any respect. They have no bearing as to Peter Bacanovic. 117 The jury received similar limiting instructions in the jury charge at the close of evidence. 118 Bacanovic now contends that certain public remarks by Hartridge and other jurors reveal that the jury did consider Pasternak's testimony in connection with the charges against him. In the interview, jurors were asked the following questions about the portion of Pasternak's testimony quoted above: What did you think when she said that? and But you found that pretty incriminating? Hartridge replied, Oh, very. Yeah. It took down two people with one shot because she mentioned Peter's name. `It's good to have a broker to tell you things.' Other jurors seemed to agree. Bacanovic asserts that these remarks indicate that his conviction was improperly influenced by extra-record prejudicial material, and that the District Court erred by denying his motion for a new trial and his request for an evidentiary hearing in holding, in part, that Hartridge's statement was inadmissible under Fed.R.Evid. 606(b). See United States v. Stewart, 317 F.Supp.2d 426, 431-32 (S.D.N.Y.2004). 119 Fed.R.Evid. 606(b) precludes a juror from testifying about deliberations and jurors' mental processes in the course thereof, but allows testimony regarding extraneous prejudicial information that came to the jury's attention. Bacanovic argues that the juror's statement regarding Pasternak's testimony falls within the exception to Rule 606(b) because (i) it was outside the record, as the record pertained to him and (ii) was highly prejudicial because it was the only evidence corroborating Faneuil's testimony that Bacanovic was involved with telling Stewart that Waksal was attempting to sell his stock. 120 According to Bacanovic, a ruling against him on this point would have the effect of barring, under Rule 606(b), testimony that the jury improperly considered evidence extraneous to one defendant in a multi-defendant trial, where Rule 606(b) would permit such testimony from a juror regarding the same extraneous evidence if the defendant was tried alone. We do not agree with that articulation of the issue. In fact, a ruling in Bacanovic's favor would enable an end-run around the well-settled proposition that jurors are presumed to follow instructions, see, e.g. United States v. Downing, 297 F.3d 52, 59 (2d Cir.2002), by permitting inquiry into a matter at the core of jury deliberations protected by Rule 606(b), see United States Football League v. Nat'l Football League, 842 F.2d 1335, 1371 n. 24 (2d Cir.1988) (rejecting, under Rule 606(b), claim that jurors were improperly influenced by information not in evidence despite district court's limiting instruction). 121 In so deciding, we agree with the Eighth Circuit's decision to reject an argument, similar to Bacanovic's, that Rule 606(b) did not prohibit the trial court from inquiring about jurors' alleged discussion of the defendant's failure to testify. See United States v. Rodriguez, 116 F.3d 1225 (8th Cir.1997). Like Bacanovic, the Rodriguez defendant argued that his failure to testify was not evidence and should not have been considered, it should be considered an `outside influence' about which the jurors should be allowed to testify. Id. at 1226-27. The Eighth Circuit responded, 122 That [defendant] did not testify is not a fact the jurors learned through outside contact, communication, or publicity. It did not enter the jury room through an external, prohibited route. It was part of the trial, and was part of the information each juror collected. It should not have been discussed by the jury, and indeed was the subject of a jury instruction to that effect. But it was not extraneous information, and therefore does not fall within the exception outlined in Rule 606(b). 123 Id. at 1227. We reach the same conclusion, for the same reasons. 124 Here, as in Rodriguez, the alleged impermissible influence was not the result of information the jurors learned through outside contact, communication, or publicity or that enter[ed] the jury room through an external, prohibited route. Id. Rather, Pasternak's testimony came `from the witness stand in a public courtroom where there is full judicial protection of the defendant's right of confrontation, of cross-examination, and of counsel.' Loliscio v. Goord, 263 F.3d 178, 185 (2d Cir.2001) (quoting Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 472-73, 85 S.Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424 (1965)). As such, the testimony cannot be considered extraneous information. 8 Accordingly, in considering whether Bacanovic's Sixth Amendment rights were implicated by an improperly influenced jury, the District Court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to order a new trial or an evidentiary hearing that was clearly proscribed by Rule 606(b). 125