DOJ-OGR-00010356.jpg

Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document653_ Filed 04/01/22 Page 33 of 40 removal.” Jd. Accordingly, this Court refuses the Defendant’s invitation to expand this “strictly limited” category of “truly ‘exceptional’” circumstances absent binding authority. /d. Second, even if a court must imply bias on the basis of a juror’s similar experience, the voir dire in this case of comparable jurors evinces that Juror 50’s personal experience is not so similar to the issues in this case as to constitute a “truly exceptional” situation. Nor is it sufficiently similar to warrant the Court’s exercise of discretion to infer bias. In arguing that Juror 50’s experience is sufficiently similar, the Defendant highlights that Juror 50 was sexually abused as a minor on multiple occasions by “two people who were friends”—his stepbrother, who was “someone familiar to him . . . who was part of his life,” and the stepbrother’s friend. Maxwell Post-Hearing Br. at 4. He also delayed reporting the abuse. /d. But the Defendant overlooks the important differences. Juror 50 was younger—ages 9 and 10—than the victims testified they were when they were abused by the Defendant and Epstein. He disclosed his abuse to his mother in high school, unlike the victims here. And unlike the period of two years of abuse that Juror 50 endured, some of the trial witnesses testified about several years of abuse. Like Juror A and Juror B, the Court would not have implied or inferred bias if Juror 50 had disclosed his experience during jury selection. The Court would have asked appropriate follow- up questions proffered by counsel and determined based on the juror’s answers to those questions whether he could serve as a fair and impartial juror. Juror 50 is also dissimilar to the cases from other federal circuits and state courts cited by the Defendant. For example, as noted above, the Defendant’s prominent citation to Sampson v. United States is misplaced because the juror in that case told a “litany of lies” bearing on a variety of issues. 724 F.3d at 161. Thus, unlike here, a “combination of factors” led the First 33 DOJ-OGR-00010356