Intelligent juries can be a firewall against capricious prosecution and abuse of power. And in spite of what judges say, jurors can judge both the facts and the law in making a decision. Lying in a court is never a good idea, but if I had to make the Hobson’s Choice, I would rather lie to get on a jury than lie to get out of jury duty.
It's funny how a topic suddenly comes from all directions. Saturday was Lying Jurors Day. On Saturday, the words above appeared on Countenance Blog, an anonymous St. Louis blog "of interest to members and supporters of the Council of Conservative Citizens," whose white supremacist roots are traced at the Anti-Defamation League. On the same day, Gideon at a public defender relayed a story from lawyer/blogger Woman in Black about a juror whom she believes lied in a trial she defended. Simple Justice in turn picked that up, with a great description of how hard it is both to prevent jurors from lying to get on the jury and to do anything about it when it happens.
It does happen. One of the jurors who convicted Martha Stewart, "by far the most outspoken juror on the panel," failed to disclose an arrest and three lawsuits against him on a jury questionnaire that reportedly asked for this information. Just in recent months on Deliberations, we've had the football fan who faithfully responded when asked who his favorite team was, but said nobody asked him whether he hated the plaintiff Oakland Raiders, which he did; the juror in the California Peregrine trial who at first said he wasn't reading media coverage of the trial, but later admitted he had; and the blogging lawyer juror who bragged that he'd slipped through voir dire by describing himself as a "project manager," leaving out the lawyer part. This blog has gotten at least one reader who found me by searching for "What happens if you lie about voir dire."
A pound of cure
Juror-lie cases aren't easy to overturn, but Woman in Black's case might be among the few that might be overturned under the federal standard. Woman in Black said her juror confessed after the trial to having "a bias against mental health defenses," saying that he hadn't been asked that specific question in voir dire -- but, she says, she did ask.
The federal rule in these cases comes from 1984's McDonough Power Equipment v. Greenwood: "[T]o obtain a new trial in such a situation, a party must first demonstrate that a 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." That might not cover the blogging juror who lied about being a lawyer, since being a lawyer doesn't support a challenge for cause. But if it doesn't cover the case where a juror denies he has a bias and later says he does, it's hard to imagine what case would be overturned. (In California, the rule is different; the blogging lawyer's lie got the case sent back.)
Tomorrow, an ounce of prevention -- an ounce is about all there is -- and an attempt at a larger perspective.
(Photo by Christina, technochick's 11-year-old daughter, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/technochick/595491058/; license details there.)
