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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document614_ Filed 02/24/22 Page10of12 the defense view that such delays and lapses may discredit such a witness. Indeed, his affiliation with sexual abuse victims caused him to have a negative emotional reaction when defense counsel did their job holding up the testimony of alleged victims to scrutiny. Thus, his own experiences disqualified him as an unbiased juror. Additionally, it created the potential he would bias the other panelists. But even one biased juror out of 12 fatally undermines the structural integrity of the process — the Constitutional requirement of a unanimous jury verdict by 12 fair and impartial jurors. See, e.g., Warger v. Shauers, 574 U.S. 40, 49 (2014) (discussing “structural” errors). Had Juror 50 made the same sort of statement during voir dire that he made to the media about approaching this case “from a victim’s point of view,” surely the Court would have struck him for cause the way it struck so many other jurors who admitted being abuse victims. See United States v. Encarnation, 2022 WL 500399, at *6 (1st Cir. Feb. 18, 2022) (jury should be “free from preconceived viewpoints”). That is actual bias. Even when jurors who were sexually abused as children claim they can be impartial, courts have found otherwise and reversed convictions. See Ward v. Commonwealth, 587 S.W.3d 312, 329 (Ky. 2019); see also Mach v. Stewart, 137 F.3d 630, 633 (9th Cir. 1997) (reversing conviction because struck juror told the venire that she worked with child sex abuse victims and never knew a child to lie about abuse). Implied And Inferred Bias: “In contrast to the inquiry for actual bias, which focuses on whether the record at voir dire supports a finding that the juror was in fact partial, the issue for implied bias is whether an average person in the position of the juror in controversy would be prejudiced.” Torres, 128 F.3d at 45. “And in determining whether a prospective juror is impliedly biased, ‘his statements upon voir dire [about his ability to be impartial] are totally irrelevant.’” Jd. (citation omitted). As Chief Justice Marshall explained, there are circumstances in which a prospective juror “is presumed to have a bias” and even though “[h]le may declare that DOJ-OGR-00009117

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Filename DOJ-OGR-00009117.jpg
File Size 757.3 KB
OCR Confidence 94.4%
Has Readable Text Yes
Text Length 2,261 characters
Indexed 2026-02-03 17:41:40.977884