In Webster v. U.S., the defendant was convicted of cocaine-trafficking and tax fraud charges. The defendant, after exhausting his direct appeals, filed a habeas petition arguing that his conviction should be overturned because one juror (M.J.) had called in sick during deliberations.
In response to defendant's petition, the federal trial court interviewed all the jurors who sat on defendant's case except for M.J. The results of the interviews were mixed as some former jurors remember deliberating without a juror while others did not. Ultimately, the trial court denied defendant's habeas, finding that the defendant had procedurally defaulted for failing to raise the absent juror issue earlier. The trial judge also found that the evidence presented (juror interviews, testimony from court personnel, and the court docket) was insufficient to determine whether the jurors actually deliberated without the missing juror.
On appeal to the 7th Circuit, the appellate court agreed with the trial courts holding but disagreed in part with how the trial court arrived at that holding. For example, the appellate court determined that the defendant's habeas was timely and not procedurally barred. However, in addressing the merits of defendant's claim, the 7th Circuit upheld the trial court's holding stating:
The district court found as a matter of fact that the jury did not deliberate on the day [missing juror] M.J. was absent, and this finding is not clearly erroneous.
The 7th Circuit went on to correct the trial court on its interpretation of U.S. v. Araujo and FRE 606(b). In examining Araujo, the appellate court pointed out that the temporary absence of a juror is not necessarily a structural error.
With respect to FRE 606(b) the appellate court stated that
"admitting the contents of the [juror] interviews plainly violated Rule 606(b). At oral argument Webster's counsel argued that Rule 606(b) was not implicated because the interviews were limited to "historical objective fact"-- that is, whether a juror was absent during deliberations, not whether the absence influenced the jury's decision. But as the district court itself acknowledged, the questions "did not fall within the ambit of facts to which a juror may testify under Rule 606(b)."
h/tip Federal Evidence Blog
Comments