Opinion ID: 2338704
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Pre-judgment of the case.

Text: Appellants contend, however, that the substance of the remarks made by Juror No. 9 to Harn and, earlier, in the presence of the deputy clerk, reflected a predisposition on the part of the juror to favor the prosecution. As we have noted on page 7, supra, the trial judge found no reason to conclude that the juror's disagreement with the planting defense outlined by Peay's attorney in her opening statement precluded him from being a completely fair and impartial juror. We are satisfied that the judge's assessment was entirely reasonable. One cannot fairly expect any juror's mind to be a tabula rasa with respect to the kind of issue presented here. See, e.g., United States v. Kelly, 722 F.2d 873, 880 (1st Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1070, 104 S.Ct. 1425, 79 L.Ed.2d 749 (1984); Boylan, supra, 698 F.Supp. at 385. The traffic in unlawful drugs, and the measures taken by law enforcement officers to combat it, are matters of public interest and concern. It is unlikely that those best qualified to serve as jurors will not have formed some impression or opinion [on these controversial subjects]. Irvin, supra, 366 U.S. at 722-23, 81 S.Ct. at 1642. Of particular importance here, moreover, is that the juror expressed his skepticism of Peay's defense after hearing it described in opening statement; any bias he evinced was against the plausibility of a frame-up as outlined in this case. A juror without any pro-prosecution bias whatever might well have been skeptical of the assertions in Peay's opening statement. According to Peay's attorney, the officers of the arrest or jump-out squad planted crack cocaine on her client so that the sellers, Medrano-Quiroz and Sermeno, could be arrested and successfully prosecuted for distribution of drugs. So far as a juror listening to the opening statement could discern, however, the policeactually, the officers in the observation post, not the jump-outsbased their belief that appellants were sellers largely on their observation of appellants' transaction with Peay. It was for the alleged sale to this particular buyer that the two men were arrested. If, in fact, appellants did not sell cocaine to Peay, and if the police knew this to be so, then the motive to plant drugs on Peay which counsel ascribed to the policenamely, to apprehend two drug sellersmakes little practical sense. [14] We emphasize that this is not a case in which a juror conveyed or intimated to anyone that he had a closed mind with respect to the guilt or innocence of any defendant, even of Peay, [15] or that he would refuse to listen to the evidence, or to counsel's arguments, or to the judge's instructions. Rather, Juror No. 9 voiced out loud on two occasions an impression which other reasonable jurors may well have shared, but which they apparently kept to themselves until the case was submitted to the jury. The record reflects juror impropriety, but the judge could reasonably conclude that it does not show lack of juror impartiality.