Federal Rules of Evidence Rule
606:
b) During an Inquiry into the Validity of a Verdict or
Indictment.
(1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an
inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify
about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s
deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote;
or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court
may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these
matters.
(2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether:
(A)
extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s
attention;
(B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any
juror; or
(C) a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict
form.
And the Notes by the Advisory
Committee:
The mental operations and emotional reactions of jurors
in arriving at a given result would, if allowed as a subject of inquiry, place
every verdict at the mercy of jurors and invite tampering and
harassment.
...
Under the federal decisions the central focus has been
upon insulation of the manner in which the jury reached its verdict, and this
protection extends to each of the components of deliberation, including
arguments, statements, discussions, mental and emotional reactions, votes, and
any other feature of the process. ...
And the Notes of the
Judiciary Committee (Senate Report):
Public policy requires a
finality to litigation. And common fairness requires that absolute privacy be
preserved for jurors to engage in the full and free debate necessary to the
attainment of just verdicts. Jurors will not be able to function effectively if
their deliberations are to be scrutinized in post-trial litigation. In the
interest of protecting the jury system and the citizens who make it work, rule
606 should not permit any inquiry into the internal deliberations of the
jurors.
Jury deliberations are sacrosanct other than the three
exceptions. If you can't direct the jury foreman's remarks in the media to one
of three exceptions your opinion appears to have no sustainable perspective on
the jury verdict.
You could imagine there is the possibility the law wasn't
properly presented to a jury by the court, or that a jury misapplied the law
which is likely where the notion of 'no reasonable jury' comes from and it's
filtered through the perspective of the law as explained by the court in jury
instructions and testimony provided in court.
Finding that no reasonable
jury could find the way the verdict was returned as a matter of law can result
in a new trial. Otherwise the Seventh Amendment tells us " ... no fact tried by
a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United
States".
So does the foreman's arguments, statements, the jury's discussions
and reactions address one or more of the three exceptions? Otherwise the court
of public opinion isn't a duly recognized Court of the United States, it's
simply disagreeing with the verdict.
And if one wanted to go on about the
source code being available to the jury there is of course the opportunity to
demonstrate that "... you must compare the product or method with the patent
claim and determine whether every requirement of the claim is included in that
product or method" (Jury Instruction 26, Page 39,
ApplevSamsung-1903.pdf) as law presented by the court was misapplied and
that a reasonable jury would have found otherwise.
And of course as PJ notes
without all the sealed exhibits and (expert) testimony we as observers are
unable to make that determination and form a reasoned opinion. We can of course
gain a greater insight once the transcripts are available or through any appeals
or filings that aren't sealed.
Otherwise jury deliberations leading to a
verdict are a bit like making sausage and as in this case the ingredients are
unsettling. The blame for the turmoil appears to rest with the quality of the
representations of jurors exerting their first amendment rights post trial.
Whether or not that would cause change resulting in those rights to be
restricted or increased emphasis on the law in jury instructions is a different
debate. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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