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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 20 2012 @ 11:29 PM EDT |
It's an eighth circuit case; F.2d refers to the "second
series" of the Federal Reporter, a collection of federal
opinions published by West Publishing.
To determine whether a case is still good law, go to a law
library and look it up in Shepard's Index. (Services like
Lexis and Westlaw have an equivalent feature, but they're
insanely expensive.)
The facts in this particular case aren't that scary: the
juror in question worked in a large real estate office (the
plaintiff worked in the same place but didn't know her), and
may not even have known that the office had some financial
ties to the defendant (the plaintiff didn't know). There
was no evidence of bias. During voir dire, jurors were not
even asked if they had any business dealings with the
defendant.
The rule is simple: you have to ask during voir dire, or you
can't complain later about an answer that you might have
gotten. If this rule weren't in place, you'd never ask any
questions. After the trial, of you didn't like the verdict,
you'd do jury research, find something that might cause one
juror to be biased, and demand a new trial.
So though it sounds scary, here's the rule as it's been in
the 8th circuit since 1960, as cited in the Monsanto case:
"[T]he right to challenge a juror is waived by failure to
object at the time the jury is empaneled, if the basis for
objection might have been discovered during voir dire.
Johnson v. Hill,274 F.2d 110, 116 (8th Cir.1960); Morrison
v. Ted Wilkerson, Inc.,343 F.Supp. 1319, 1331-32
(D.Mo.1971)." [I added a comma for clarity]
This does not mean that you have to "read the juror's mind",
nor does it mean that jurors can get away with lying. It
means you have to ask.
In the Samsung case, the foreman gave very incomplete
answers. The judge *might* rule that this was lying and a
new trial is warranted on those grounds, but I think she'll
do something else. She *might* rule that Samsung didn't ask
questions that were specific enough, and so Samsung lost the
right to complain now. Either of those rulings would be
appealed.
The judge might also avoid that issue by ruling instead on
other grounds. For example, she could determine that during
deliberations, the jury didn't follow instructions. That's
a messy road to go down, because some of the evidence for
that is interviews with the press, which is just hearsay.
Bringing the jurors back in and questioning them is not
attractive. Tossing out the verdict because it's self-
contradictory on its face might work... there are a few
other possibilities. It'll be interesting to see what Koh
comes up with.
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