Lawyers representing a Cincinnati city councilman convicted of corruption wanted to do a deep dive on a juror’s cellular phone. They learned the juror (“Juror X”) had posted regularly to Facebook about the trial, despite the judge’s order to not talk about the case publicly.
The judge conducted a hearing where Juror X denied any impropriety and even shared posts on her cellphone with the councilman’s attorneys. Juror X raised their hopes of reversing the guilty verdicts against their client when she posted that another juror seemed biased against all politicians.
The Epoch Times further reported:
The cellphone and other electronic devices of “Juror X,” whose social-media posts during a high-profile federal case created controversy, will not be subjected to forensic examination, a federal appeals court ruled.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, refused to issue an order allowing a probe of the juror’s devices in the case of Alexander “P.G.” Sittenfeld, a former Cincinnati city councilman who was convicted of two federal corruption-related charges in July.
However, one of the judges opined that the Sept. 23 ruling goes too far, opining that the decision should have been tailored more narrowly to Sittenfeld’s case. Instead, the 25-page document (pdf) was issued as a “sweeping opinion” affecting cases throughout the four-state region that the court covers: Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan.
Such controversies over alleged juror misconduct are expected to surface more frequently, experts said, given the near-universal use of electronic devices and difficulty in policing jurors’ use of them during trials.
While courts possess “inherent authority” to question jurors about possible misconduct, that authority is limited, wrote Alice Batchelder, a senior U.S. circuit judge.
Courts “cannot search jurors’ personal devices and steamroll their Fourth Amendment rights in the process,” Batchelder wrote. That amendment protects U.S. citizens against the government’s “unreasonable” searches and seizures.
Ultimately, the court concluded that a court’s power to examine juror misconduct “does not include an unlimited, inquisitorial power to order jurors to surrender their personal possessions, such as their electronic devices, or to divulge their passwords,” nor can the court “conduct a criminal inquisition.”
Toward the end of Sittenfeld’s nine-day trial on July 8, a court employee raised concerns that Juror X had repeatedly posted about her jury service on Facebook during the trial, despite Cole’s repeated admonishments that jurors were forbidden from communicating about the case to anyone by any means while the proceedings were ongoing.
After learning about alleged juror misconduct, a defendant is entitled to a hearing to explore whether a juror’s contact with outside influences affected the outcome of the trial.
When such a hearing occurred in Sittenfeld’s case, Cole found no evidence that Juror X’s conduct robbed Sittenfeld of a fair trial.
In one Facebook post, Juror X opined that a fellow juror, identified as Juror Y, seemed biased against all politicians. Both jurors were questioned behind closed doors. Juror Y denied any alleged bias, and Juror X said she didn’t think her posts violated the judge’s no-communication orders because she didn’t divulge specifics. Juror X also allowed lawyers in the case to look at posts on her cellphone.
Sittenfeld’s lawyers argued for a deeper examination of Juror X’s social media activity, but Cole saw no reason to allow that. That’s why Sittenfeld’s lawyers directed their request to the U.S. Circuit Court in early August.
The lawyers had also sought, under a sealed request, to subpoena Facebook for the records, court records show. Instead, Cole allowed the questioning of two additional jurors. Lawyers interviewed Juror A and Juror B on Aug. 17. Both denied that any extraneous influence affected the verdict.
Jurors are considered “officers of the court,” the appeals court’s ruling said. “Thus, jurors are entitled to a level of respect or deference beyond that of an ordinary witness. We doubt that other officers of the court would submit meekly to a court-ordered search of their cellphones.”
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