4.Juror Cause Challenges and Qualification Rulings
141 lines(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the public:)
THE COURT: Okay. I think we only have a few to discuss. So we passed 612 and 617 and 619 and 621?
MS. CLARKE: That's correct.
MR. WEINREB: That's right.
THE COURT: I don't remember whether 623 -- was that resolved?
MR. WEINREB: We have -- the government has a motion.
MS. CLARKE: And we have no response.
THE COURT: I guess that was the impression I had. So we didn't actually do it but it was headed that way, right?
MS. CLARKE: That's right.
THE COURT: The motion is granted.
628 we passed, as well as 634.
So that brings us to 637, I think is the first.
MR. WEINREB: So, your Honor, the government moves to excuse 637 as being substantially impaired. This juror wrote in answer to Question 78 that he doesn't feel the death penalty is morally right; 88, both in his written answer and then the follow-up answers, he said, "Ethically I'm against the death penalty; I think it's wrong," and repeatedly that he hopes that he would follow through on his ethical feeling, that he would be proud of himself if he stuck to his guns.
And he seemed to indicate that the only thing that could cause him to overcome that moral and ethical opposition to the death penalty would either be evidence that convinced him that it wasn't an immoral and unethical punishment, which is not something the trial is about, or should be about, or perhaps something where his emotions would overcome his emotions -- his ethics and morals, in which case he seems to indicate he wouldn't be proud of himself.
I think the most telling line that he gave us in trying to explain why he came out where he did was he said in answer to Question 90 that thinking about it now, he would change his answer to a B and that the only reason it wouldn't be an A is that "as an English teacher, I'm afraid of the word never," one of these things we've heard before, which is somebody -- a thoughtful, well-educated person who doesn't want to ever say "never" to anything because they don't want to be absolutist, but as a practical matter, is somebody who is not ever going to be able to impose the death penalty.
He seemed to be somebody who wanted to be on the jury, seemed to -- like he thought it would be an interesting experience, seemed very eager to give an answer that was one that he appeared to know was the answer that was called for, but it's clear that he -- you know, it's only because of his torturous thinking about it that he's even able to say that he would be able to consider it.
And in response to Question No. 95 where even if hypothetically he concluded that he could impose -- it was the right thing to do, he said he was not sure he could ever impose it, and he repeatedly gave that answer to the Court.
That's just not somebody who is qualified to sit on this jury, especially when we've encountered so many other people who, despite feeling strongly about it or struggling with it, made it clear that they could.
MR. BRUCK: Well, we oppose the motion. I'm not entirely sure we were listening to the same juror from that description. I realize that it was Mr. Weinreb's objective to hope that this juror would say that he could never impose it or that he was really an A, but he never went there. He kept coming back again and again to "it would depend on the evidence."
And, in fact, he said that his -- he would have put himself further on the scale, towards a 1, except for this case, which is a perfect expression of the fact that he is open to being persuaded by the evidence and this case provided an illustration. To be honest with you, he gave us a little bit of concern when we saw that in the questionnaire.
But in the end, it just -- this is exactly the sort of death-scrupled juror who you would expect to have -- to be experiencing the tension between his beliefs about the death penalty in the abstract and his recognition that his duty as a citizen is to follow the law and be fair. And that's what he said.
His bottom line was, "I want to do right by the law and every" -- "I want to be fair" -- let me think. The exact words were something -- "I want to be fair to" -- or "do right by the law and by everybody," which I don't think could be any clearer a description of the duty of a juror.
I don't see any reason to doubt this juror's sincerity. He just is a very thoughtful, smart, educated person. If the only thing he had said was, "I'm an English teacher so I never say never," then, you know, there may be some merit to what Mr. Weinreb is saying, but clearly this juror is qualified.
THE COURT: I agree. My impression of him was that he was confronting the possibility that his prior ethical assessment needed to be adjusted and he was open to adjusting it, perhaps, in this case. And so in summary, I mean, without belaboring it, I think it was consistent with his obvious intelligence and seriousness, but you could almost see him -- it dawning on him that, Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a case that I would do this in and it might be this one.
So I think he's fine.
638?
MR. WEINREB: We have no motion.
MR. BRUCK: We have a motion on this juror, and I do this with some hesitation because, God bless her, I mean, she is doing the Lord's work and I am so grateful for people like her, but she does not seem to have what is required of a juror.
She was so undone by this most straightforward question that has not concerned any other juror on Question 77, about her ability to put her opinion aside and -- she said she was unsure. And, just, you asked her to explain it and she started laughing, and it seemed like was on the verge of tears at the same time, became completely flustered.
Putting this lady on the jury would be like having an 11-member jury. I just don't think she has the independence, the ability, the life experience in a way to fulfill the duties of a juror, so -- and, you know, maybe in a less complicated case it may not be true, but we just don't think it would be fair to include her on this jury. I don't think it would be fair to her or to the defendant, so we move to disqualify her.
MR. WEINREB: Your Honor, we oppose that motion. That Question 77, on the contrary, I think, has bedeviled many people the way that it's phrased. And I think that the manner in which the -- this juror was exhibiting some nervousness about being at a table like this, being confronted by, you know, a tableful of suits, as many jurors have said. I think she was just flustered by the experience of being here and being put on the spot. So that accounts for much of what we heard in response to her answer.
When the Court sort of tried to formulate the question a few times in a way that would put it more plainly, and when the question was put plainly enough to her, she had no trouble understanding it and answering it. And I think to disqualify her just because she might not have as much education as another juror just would be completely unfair.
THE COURT: I think she's okay. She was completely nervous, and I think she settled a little bit as she talked a little bit more and I think we got there.
I was actually quite impressed by her response on the Question 50 about the Mary Schiavo [sic] case. When she got into her wheelhouse she settled down and she seemed like a very composed and thoughtful person. And I think she'll be okay.
645?
MR. BRUCK: We have a cause challenge on this juror, your Honor. This, of course, is the owner of the meat-packing company. And I'd like to -- primarily on the grounds of -- there are a number of issues but I think hardship takes care of it, and I would just like to address that unless the Court wishes me to go further.
This is a juror -- although he did not request a hardship, he wrote in answer to 74 as -- this is clearly a juror who would like to serve, would like to do his duty. That was impressive about him. But he wrote, "As much as I would like to take on any trial for the experience and duty, I feel it would be a burden to me for the proper running of my USDA meat-processing plant" -- and that was fully substantiated by his examination here today.
The bottom line for him was he said -- "Would you be distracted by all the problems?" He talked about the concerns of the equipment breaking down that only he can get going again, and his words were, "It would be on my mind all day long." All day long for four months.
That -- you know, we have excused -- the Court has excused people because they had a cruise at the end of May. This is a juror we're really asking too much. Even though he is not an hourly paid worker, this is a tiny, little company, he described the competitive pressures, the line is down and, boom, your customers go somewhere else and never come back. That is what is going to be on his mind. When an expert witness is going on and on, he's going to be thinking, "Oh, come on. I've got to get out of here. I've got to see what's happening at the business." We know that's true.
So we just don't think it's fair to this juror and we don't think it's fair to the defendant.
THE COURT: I wouldn't excuse him on hardship grounds. I think it's tolerable. It is a hardship but it's not the kind of hardship that I think is so impossible, nor do I think in this case it is a danger that jurors' minds will wander, frankly.
MR. BRUCK: Well, I hope you're right.
As to the other issues, the Court has -- I understand the juror gave the correct responses in the end -- well, in response to questioning about his ability to put his opinions aside. But I think there is -- if I'm not mistaken, out of all 60-something jurors who have been qualified, maybe only one has said that they had an opinion both that the defendant was guilty and that he should receive the death penalty. This juror is in that category. Like I say, I understand that that's not where it ended, that's just where it started, but I think that creates a rather heavy burden to ask ourselves, you know, do we need to include this juror in the pool.
[REDACTED]Then there was the -- he had -- does have some family connection to the events. His two -- his wife's two sisters were there. He said of course that would not affect him either, but it's something to weigh in the mix.
And then there were the very complicated inconsistencies. He was a 10 on the scale and told the Court that he would consider everything and could go either way, but then went back in talking to Ms. Conrad -- and I don't think she was leading him. She was really just asking him the question to cause him to say he was a 10 again, and he endorsed it again.
I think when all is said and done, there is -- and I can't prove this, but it is a reasonable likelihood that the way his various statements on the death penalty are reconciled, is that the weight of the evidence of guilt would determine he could go either way on penalty depending on the aggravation, depending on the proof of guilt. But whether this is really a juror who could consider mitigation, whether he even understood the concept after all the back-and-forth, just remains an unknown.
Put all of that together, including, you know, the concern about hardship which the Court feels it's not enough, but -- you know, we both at various times said, you know, we have hundreds of jurors to choose from, this one, there's just too much.
MR. WEINREB: Your Honor, the government opposes that motion. This strikes me as an effort at death by a thousand cuts, which is really more like death by a thousand scratches, and virtually nothing that Mr. Bruck has mentioned is remotely close to being a disqualifying fact.
The shoplifting conviction, he said that he didn't report it because -- and he used the word "minor." And it was a little unclear to me whether he was saying it was because it was a minor conviction or because he was a minor when he got the conviction.
He's a man in his 50s. If he was a minor, then -- and it was sealed, which it has been, one could easily understand how he might think that it was not something that he was called upon to report, nor, I think, do we need to have any concern that this is somebody who is concealing things in general or is a deceptive person. He came across as a very honest person.
You know, in fact, when he was talking about his hardship, I think he just gave us the facts honestly. He didn't claim a hardship he didn't feel. He told us exactly how he felt about it without embellishing, without trying to make it seem was more than it was or less than it was. And I think we can assume that's true for his answers about pretty much everything.
With respect to the death penalty, it's obvious that the defense wants to get rid of him because he's a pro death penalty juror. And I think there's no question that he is. But he seemed to have no problem when answering open-ended questions and when answering on the questionnaire, indicating that he would be willing to consider both sentences and would, as he kept saying over and over and over again, even as he was being badgered with a lot of questions, that he would look at all of the evidence in making his decision. That was his -- his bottom line. And he was being -- everybody was coming at him in all these different ways, and I think he eventually retreated to that because he wasn't sure exactly what everybody was trying to get at with all of these questions when he had already given that answer.
At one point he did talk about -- with respect to putting a 10 for Question 88 he talked about, you know, if he was found guilty. But I think he indicated through his answers, and we had heard other jurors make this same use of the word, that guilty means you're convinced that the death penalty is the appropriate sentence; in other words, If I found him to be guilty in that sense, that all the evidence has come in, all the evidence I'm ever going to hear, and I make the determination that this is the appropriate thing, yes, then I'm in favor of the death penalty.
But at no point did he ever say in a way that contradicted his earlier answers that he would automatically give the death penalty to everybody convicted of an intentional murder or that he would be unable to consider mitigating evidence. That's just not a fair characterization of what he said during a very lengthy questioning.
THE COURT: Well, as with other jurors, he got tangled up a little bit in some of the legal concepts, I think. I think my assessment is that he is open to both sides and -- we've said this about somebody else, I think -- is instructable. I think that this kind of abbreviated sort of instruction sometimes can be unhelpful and they get backed into corners.
I mean, you know, there's -- Question 89 has been a troubled question throughout, I think. And so -- I think in the end he indicated that he could be open-minded in a general way, without getting too specific about what those duties would be. And of course we have to think about the environment. When he gets to that point he will have been through the guilt phase and he'll have fellow jurors and he'll have the instructions and so on. Under those conditions, I think he will -- from my assessment of him here, he will be open to being receptive to either argument depending on the evidence.
So I would overrule the objection to him.
646 I think we dealt with. 649?
MR. WEINREB: Your Honor, the government has a motion on 649. This is a juror who I don't think we would argue that he -- he would not -- it's not our argument that he would walk into the jury box automatically in his mind that I am going to vote for life imprisonment no matter what. He said that he could be open -- he could listen to all the evidence. And in response to Mr. Bruck's question at the end, he even said that he could say, if he believed -- if he came to the conclusion that the death penalty was the appropriate sentence, he could say it to the other jurors, but that's a totally different question as whether if he could vote to sentence somebody to death. That's also a necessary feature of death qualification, somebody who could not only really consider it but could really do it if that were their conclusion. And this was a juror who clearly, the more he thought about it, the less confident he became that he could do it.
He candidly admitted that he hadn't thought much about it. And as we focused him on the question and asked him to really think about it, he was obviously very, very upset about the whole thought of it. You could see him getting emotional. And, you know, there were long hesitations in his answers. He looked -- his body language, his expression signaled his discomfort and his reluctance.
Now, that's not to say it's not a weighty decision and that everybody would feel some kind of emotion in rendering it, but there's a difference between the kind of emotion that maybe even a person who was pro death penalty and confident of their ability to do it might feel and the kind of emotion of somebody who's confronting for the first time that they might actually have to do it and really profoundly -- has profound concerns about their ability to do it.
The government is entitled to death-qualified jurors, somebody who can do it to the degree of certainty that anyone can have who's never been in that situation before. We've had those people before who have said, You never know until you get there but I'm pretty confident I could do it. This is not that juror; this is somebody who is quite unconfident that he can do it, and became more and more unconfident, and as it becomes realer and realer, may go more and more in that direction.
And we don't believe it's fair to qualify a juror of that sort.
MR. BRUCK: We oppose the strike. We have to go by what the jurors say in the first instance, "Like I said, I would have a hard time, but if it merits it. I'm not committed one way or the other." When Mr. Weinreb was examining the juror, he said a lot of thought would have to go into it. He said he could vote for the death penalty if he thought it was the right thing to do. And then when I was questioning him, he said the same thing and he said it repeatedly.
Of course he's like a lot of jurors who have never been confronted with this before. The solemnity of it is weighing on him for the first time. It is emotional. It should be emotional. But he is indistinguishable from many of the jurors the Court has required.
THE COURT: Well, he is a 95-not-sure juror. We've had a number of them, and they've gone both ways. So it's not simply the -- necessarily the form of words that gets used; it's really an assessment about the person as a whole. And I guess I'm inclined to allow the strike.
I think he really, really hesitated at the idea that he might be called upon to do it. As Mr. Weinreb points out, I was struck by the long pauses, the very thoughtful pauses as he was kind of saying, What can I do? What can I do here? And he did almost tear up at one point when he was thinking of that.
He mentioned a couple of times -- the decision to take someone's life, showed how deep it was to him. Under those circumstances, I think I have to conclude he's impaired in respect to the death penalty.
MR. BRUCK: Well, of course we would note that exception under the Witherspoon line of cases.
COURT CLERK: Three, Judge.
THE COURT: 637, '38 and '45.
COURT CLERK: Right.
MR. BRUCK: The iron law of three.
THE COURT: Apparently.
MR. WEINREB: Three and a half, actually. We average three and a half.
THE COURT: Anyway, so we'll maybe get another three tomorrow or something. We'll do this I think just one more day. I don't think we're going to need to go beyond tomorrow. I think the count is at 71. So if we get three, we're at 74; if we get four, we're at 75. I think that will be fine.
The question is: What number do you think we should bring in to do that? I mean, what have we been doing, starting with some high number and getting down?
JAMES MCALEAR: Twenty.
THE COURT: I mean, what did we have -- I don't know how many we did today, 12 or 13?
MS. CLARKE: We started with 21.
THE COURT: No, I mean a net.
MS. CLARKE: It was 13.
THE COURT: Thirteen? Yeah, so we could go for 20, 21, something like that. Actually --
JAMES MCALEAR: I just want to let you know we have 17 left on Panel C.
THE COURT: Seventeen?
JAMES MCALEAR: Yes.
THE COURT: So we have 606 coming in tomorrow, that we kept skipping?
JAMES MCALEAR: Yes. And 647 would not be able to come in until the 26th, which would be Thursday.
THE COURT: Who is 647? Can I see 647?
JAMES MCALEAR: 647 is [REDACTED].
THE COURT: Oh, all right. Okay. So this is up to 700? Is that --
JAMES MCALEAR: It's up to 682.
THE COURT: Okay. And that was how many again?
JAMES MCALEAR: Seventeen.
THE COURT: Seventeen plus one?
JAMES MCALEAR: Seventeen plus one, which would be that 647, so, which would be that Thursday.
THE COURT: I haven't looked at the group so I don't know how many vulnerable to, you know, joint discharges there are for hardship or various other reasons. Maybe Jim and I can propose it a little later, what the range is.
MR. WEINREB: That's fine.
THE COURT: Does anybody mind if we go in to the next panel?
MR. WEINREB: No.
THE COURT: I mean, it would only be the beginning of it, so...
MR. WEINREB: No, there's no problem going into Panel D.
THE COURT: So I think maybe we can do that. So we'll come up with a list. I haven't looked at it yet.
Some housekeeping matters on things getting served and not served. Could we have the defendant's oppositions to the government's motions in limine served to us through the law clerk by Saturday?
MS. CLARKE: To all four?
THE COURT: Yeah. Well --
MR. WEINREB: Actually, your Honor, the Katherine Porterfield one is a purely sentencing phase.
THE COURT: That's right.
MR. WEINREB: I'm sorry. Penalty phase.
So I don't think there's any need for response to that anytime before the trial begins.
THE COURT: I think that's right. I think that's right.
And there's an old one for Vogelsang, I think --
MR. WEINREB: That is still pending.
THE COURT: -- that is pending but has been briefed, I think. So that's not -- so, yeah, whatever's there.
Here's what I want to know, is what do we have to resolve before openings? And I'd like to be able to do that.
So let me just sketch out where I think we may go schedule-wise. Assuming we do tomorrow and are satisfied at the end of the day that we can stop the voir dire process -- I know I've said this to people in chambers and I've said it to myself. I don't remember whether I've said it to you. I think I did -- but I want to skip over a few days before we do the peremptories. I want to do that right before we empanel the jury officially. I don't want 18 selected people hanging out there for days before they get sworn. It just invites trouble.
So my thought is to set aside some days to resolve these legal issues, and then perhaps Monday have argument on any motions in limine and any other motions we need to resolve, and resolve them Monday. Have argument in the morning and have a decision either right then or by the afternoon or something like that. It would be relatively summary, obviously, without a lot of explanation, but we could resolve them. Tuesday have the 70-whatever jurors in to do the peremptories.
Backing up a minute, I guess before that we would resolve any pending issues with respect to jurors as to which there are some issues, okay? So there won't be necessarily 70, maybe there will be the high 60s or whatever the outcome of that is.
But have them in on Tuesday, complete the peremptory, plan then to have the 18 -- 12 jurors and 18 -- and six alternates in Wednesday morning, swear them, and begin the case, okay? So that's my broad outline. And it will fit in with -- so it might be then that we would have no -- well, I won't say no, but no significant courtroom proceedings on Thursday and Friday, but Monday, and proceed that way, okay, as we tidy up some of these things?
I think there are a couple of ex parte matters I need to discuss with the defense, and I don't know whether any with the government, so we might try to do those on Thursday and Friday somehow.
MS. CLARKE: Okay.
THE COURT: So that's the general outline. Any comments?
MS. CLARKE: No. We brought with us to discuss with the government our list of motions that we think are outstanding, so perhaps we can do that.
MR. WEINREB: We're happy to stay behind and try to get that to you this afternoon.
THE COURT: Okay. So anyway, Saturday any oppositions emailed to us.
MS. CLARKE: If it needs to be resolved before --
THE COURT: If it needs to be resolved before opening. Yes, of course if it's --
MS. CLARKE: If it's a penalty-phase motion --
THE COURT: Absolutely. And even if it's a guilt phase but --
MS. CLARKE: Not opening.
THE COURT: -- can be omitted in the opening, skipped over, that's fine too. I mean, in an ordinary case my experience is very few motions in limine are resolvable before trial. You always want to see what the conditions are when the issue arises.
That just sparks one of the -- you know, I think it's maybe in the status report and the government's response and so on -- the mockup. Has the defense seen the mockup, the Boylston Street mockup? I'd like that to happen as soon as can be so that we can resolve that -- any problem there, if there is one.
MR. WEINREB: So we actually currently do not intend to use the mockup other than we've been using it for witness preparation. But we're actually -- I'll discuss with the others --
THE COURT: Okay. Well, if you're not going to going to use it, that makes it easy. I just don't want a last-minute problem with the carpentry department.
MR. WEINREB: Of course.
So the government has a couple of motions that are pending that don't, strictly speaking, have to be resolved before opening statements or have to do with the admission of evidence but are things that are urgent for other reasons. For example, the motion to take the section of the boat that has the note on it so that it can be brought into court, certain things that just require some lead time.
There's also an issue with respect to overseas witnesses that to the extent that they need visas and they need government assistance in getting in, that's not something that can just happen overnight. So there are certain things that -- we'll flag them --
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINREB: -- what we consider to be sort of urgent motions even though they're not motions in limine, per se, pertaining to opening statements.
THE COURT: Okay. Does the defense plan to open at the beginning of the case or reserve?
MS. CLARKE: Open.
THE COURT: Okay. So just on that subject, can you give me an idea of the time required for combined openings?
MR. WEINREB: The government estimates an hour.
MS. CLARKE: Far less than that.
MR. WEINREB: Hopefully it will be less.
THE COURT: Okay. And so Wednesday morning we would expect to get the first witness?
MR. WEINREB: Yes.
THE COURT: Because we'll have selected the jury the day before; in other words, reduced it to the 18, they'll just report, and we won't swear them until that morning, just for obvious reasons, I guess, and then -- okay. Okay.
MS. CLARKE: Has the Court decided how strikes will go?
THE COURT: No. And I'm open to the suggestion. I don't know whether you've discussed it any further than that. I'm indifferent. I don't want to -- I'll entertain any --
MS. CLARKE: Drawing numbers out of a hat?
THE COURT: Any ideas.
No, we'll take them in sequence, but whether you want to do it the way I've described is my normal practice or whether you want to take a look at the whole panels and work out something else. I haven't thought that through myself but I was kind of waiting to -- the government put it out there and I was kind of waiting for the defense's reaction to that.
MS. CLARKE: I think we were inclined to go with your normal approach.
THE COURT: Well, okay. Maybe that's something we can spend some time on if you want to debate that out. I don't know that there are any rules about it. I think it's -- I guess the only thought I had -- question I had about the government's suggestion was in my method, the alternates become the last six seated, so you know when you're in alternate territory. I'm not sure how that would work.
MR. WEINREB: That would still be the case. We would exercise the 20 and the 20.
THE COURT: You'd get down to the last -- the three and three?
MR. WEINREB: Exactly.
THE COURT: Well, that actually raises a separate issue, and that is in my normal practice I don't worry about whether the alternate strike is -- well, whether -- so the government gets six plus two for the alternates, right?
MR. WEINREB: In the normal case, yes.
THE COURT: In the normal case.
Or one for the alternate or two for the alternate, depending on how many alternates. I never worried about whether seven were used for the original 12 and one for the next. I mean, I don't know whether anybody parses it that precisely. I just deal with it as a total number. And I would be inclined to do that here with the 23, not worry about who's susceptible to 20 and who's susceptible to three. It's just an accounting problem I'm not sure we need. So you can think about that.
In other words, the three extra which are allocated for the alternates, may they only be used on alternates or can you exhaust your 23 before you even get to the alternates, if that's the issue?
MS. CLARKE: We think that they can only be used on the alternates.
MS. CONRAD: The rule says that. 24 says that.
MS. CLARKE: Twenty each and then --
THE COURT: That's the number but --
MS. CONRAD: Rule 24, I think it's (c), says that all the peremptories for the -- that are assigned for the alternates can only be used for the alternates.
THE COURT: Oh, it does say that?
MS. CONRAD: Yeah.
THE COURT: Specifically?
MS. CONRAD: Yeah.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, that answers my question. Okay. So we'll have to pay attention to that boundary, then. That might be easier to do in the practice additional method than in yours, but I haven't thought that out.
A number of oppositions by the government to defense motions apparently were actually served but have never been filed. Those include opposition to the defendant's motion to limit disclosure of foreign defense witnesses. A copy was apparently served but we don't have it formally on the docket. It includes an opposition to the defendant's motion in limine regarding the testimony of terrorism experts and Dr. King. I think none of those oppositions have actually made it to the docket.
MS. CLARKE: And we're wondering whether any of it that made it to the docket actually didn't get served on us.
THE COURT: Right. And -- well, now, I thought that was happening. I thought that had happened by now.
MR. WEINREB: That did happen.
MS. CLARKE: Well, we got three on Saturday, Judge, and when we were digging back through to figure out whether we actually picked them up from the Court, we found one that the government still hasn't served but was in there. You know, we haven't been comparing so we don't know whether we've been served with everything the government has filed or not. That gave us some -- sort of a sense of queasiness.
THE COURT: Well, we've had the same experience.
(Laughter.)
THE COURT: So feel a little bit less queasy.
But can we get some representatives of each party to straighten all this out?
MR. WEINREB: Yes.
THE COURT: Because the docket -- this has been a complicated docket, and the snow days have not helped because on our part we've had subs sometimes taking over because our personnel weren't here. So we've had some docketing done by people who weren't used to the way we were docketing these things. So we've just got to straighten kind of straighten it all out.
The opposition to the defendant's position on the video that we've been showing, we got a courtesy copy mailed to us but there was never a filing in the clerk's office. That was back in early February.
On the defense side, the memo in support of the third motion for change of venue, we asked that a couple of juror numbers be redacted in that redacted copy then filed; in other words, the redactions of quotations, but I think we also -- this is Docket -- E-Order 1020 striking a couple of the juror numbers. It was a minor change but --
MS. CONRAD: There was some confusion about that, I think, because there was a page reference in the Court's order and a page of the memorandum.
THE COURT: Yeah.
MS. CONRAD: And we looked at it and we did not see.
THE COURT: Was it off a page?
MS. CONRAD: It might have been. I don't know.
THE COURT: I mean, it could have been an artifact --
MS. CONRAD: There was not a juror number on that page so we weren't quite sure what to do with that.
THE COURT: Well, there are juror numbers, I guess wherever they are.
MS. CONRAD: We'll take another look.
THE COURT: Okay. And then that -- the redacted -- with that redaction, that can be filed.
And the reply to the government's opposition to the defendant's motion to quote materials in the public filings, I denied the main motion but I granted the motion to file, and the reply hasn't been formally filed. This is just neatening up the docket, that's all.
MS. CLARKE: In other words, bring the hard copy over?
THE COURT: Is it under seal?
MS. CLARKE: Everything is.
THE COURT: The reply is? Yeah, I guess so. Then bring the hard copy over and the clerk will put it on.
And I think that's where a lot of these things happen. People are emailing them and serving them and things, but the process requires hard copies of sealed documents be given to the clerk and uploaded and so on and so forth. So we're trying to catch up on some of this.
Something to think about, we have a little bit of time on it, we mentioned from -- my preliminary instructions to the jury when they've been empaneled, what I may say about the indictment, whether a summary of the indictment can be perhaps jointly agreed to, that could be shown to the jury or read to the jury or whatever. Give some thought to that. I mean, we don't want to obviously present the whole complicated indictment to them, but maybe a summary of the charges.
So I think that's it for now.
MS. CLARKE: Thank you.
THE COURT: We'll get you the numbers for tomorrow as soon as we can.
(The Court exits the courtroom and the proceedings adjourned at 4:31 p.m.)