Opinion ID: 722508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Juror's Failure to Disclose Information During Voir Dire

Text: 45 Alternate juror Isaac's affidavit claimed that juror Biggs used to live on R Street and could place [Williams-Davis's and Nugent's] faces from growing up on R Street. At the initial voir dire jurors were asked whether they were familiar with the R Street and Lincoln Road neighborhood, and Biggs had not responded. At a post-trial hearing the court questioned Biggs, who said that he had lived in Washington for 13 years, and that he had lived at 1630 Lincoln Road for four months when he first moved to the area in June 1980. He had then moved to Florida Avenue and had not been back to the R Street neighborhood since. He said he had never seen defendants before the trial. When asked why he had not responded at voir dire, he said (without further elaboration) that he had not thought it was necessary. 821 F.Supp. at 748-49. The court credited his testimony and concluded that Biggs had been making a sincere effort to respond truthfully and was not biased against defendants, noting that [h]is sojourn in that neighborhood was brief and ended well before any of the criminal activities at issue in this trial occurred. Id. at 749. Appellants argue that a new trial is needed because of Biggs' knowledge of the R Street neighborhood and drug dealers whose names frequently surfaced at trial, such as Rayful Edmond, III--the last item evidently referring simply to Biggs's knowledge of the name Rayful Edmond, a much-publicized District drug dealer. 46 For reversal because of a juror's failure to disclose information at voir dire, the Supreme Court requires the complaining party to show that the juror failed to answer honestly a material question on voir dire, and then further show that a correct response would have provided a valid basis for a challenge for cause. The motives for concealing information may vary, but only those reasons that affect a juror's impartiality can truly be said to affect the fairness of a trial. McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 556, 104 S.Ct. 845, 850, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984). We applied the McDonough standard in United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843, 903-04 (D.C.Cir.1990), reading it to require a showing of actual bias, id. at 904. We upheld the trial court's finding that there was no actual bias, even though the trial court disbelieved the juror's post-trial forgetfulness explanation of her failure to reveal that several of her brothers had been charged with criminal conduct, that one had been sent to prison, and that she herself had testified before a grand jury investigating a robbery allegedly committed by one of her brothers. We review the trial court's decision for abuse of discretion. United States v. Boney, 68 F.3d 497, 502 (D.C.Cir.1995). 47 Plainly the omission here does not remotely satisfy the daunting McDonough-North standard. Apart from the comparative triviality of the omission, the only specific indications about Biggs suggest that he was favorably disposed to the defendants, as he had told Isaac, according to her report of her mid-deliberations phone conversation with him, that he was going to do the best he could to carry out her plea to prevent the forfeiture of Nugent's houses and cars. And juror Scott stated that Biggs, Scott himself, and several other jurors were all in agreement that we needed to have all of the evidence and take our time deliberating without being coerced to just find them guilty. 48 There is a loose end here. Isaac's claim that Biggs could place [Williams-Davis's and Nugent's] faces from growing up on R Street was based, she said, on a drive the two took together around the R Street neighborhood because she (Isaac) didn't know where it was at. She said Biggs [319 U.S.App.D.C. 281] pointed out where various members of the R Street Crew used to live. The trial court questioned Biggs about the trip after the trial and concluded that the drive could not possibly have been prejudicial because, during trial, the jurors had repeatedly viewed enlargements of aerial photographs and street photographs of the R Street neighborhood. 821 F.Supp. at 741. Thus the information gained from the illicit drive appears to be entirely cumulative. Cf. Bibbins v. Dalsheim, 21 F.3d 13, 17 (2d Cir.1994) (in light of introduction of crime scene photographs at trial, relaying of extra-record information by juror familiar with the crime scene was cumulative). Defendants do not claim that Biggs actually knew any defendant, or that more inquiry was needed on that red herring.