Court Opinion

ID: 9710112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:02:10.59416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:54.247636
License: Public Domain

Fine, J.
(dissenting). I think it was error, on the evidence presented, for the judge to conclude that the claim that the jurors were exposed to ethnic bias in the course of their deliberations is not essentially true. Both juror Nowick and juror X, the only two witnesses claiming to have any memory of the relevant events, testified that a biased statement about the defendant’s ethnic group had been made in the jury room, although each of the witnesses attributed the remark to a different individual. The two other witnesses, neither of whom, more than seven years after the trial, remembered hearing such a remark, added nothing of substance to the evidence. It is understandable that the judge would not fully *316have accepted the testimony of either Nowick or juror X. Surely, however, given their consistent testimony that a remark had been made, a reasonably objective fact finder would have concluded that it was more likely than not that someone had expressed ethnic bias in the course of the jury deliberations. In accordance with Commonwealth v. Laguer, 410 Mass. 89, 98-99 (1991), therefore, I would have afforded the defendant a new trial.