2.Individual Voir Dire — Hardship, Impartiality, and Death-Penalty Views
219 lines(The juror enters the courtroom.)
THE COURT: Good morning.
JUROR: Good morning.
THE COURT: We're going to be doing most of the talking, you and I. This is Juror No. 4.
And for your convenience, we have your questionnaire. I may refer to some of the questions in it.
JUROR: Sure.
THE COURT: You'll recall when you were last here I instructed everyone to avoid any discussion of the case or any -- I repeated it this morning -- any investigation online or otherwise, and I'd asked you to avoid any news stories and so on.
Have you been able to do that?
JUROR: I saw a news story about the Charlie Hebdo thing and they wanted to move the case or something.
THE COURT: Okay. You didn't read it?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: Okay. So let's go through -- these are really follow-up questions to the questions and answers that you gave on the questionnaire, and mostly I'll be going in sequence, really.
I want to start with the answer to Question No. 10, and this concerns the difficulty you anticipate with respect to your job. And I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit more clearly about that including, with some detail, what it is you do.
JUROR: Yeah, absolutely.
I work for a digital marketing company, so we run advertising campaigns for --
THE COURT: Can you move the mic just a little bit closer?
JUROR: We run advertising campaigns for brands and agencies. The reason I listed that hardship is specifically because I was recently fortunate enough to be promoted and have won two very large accounts with both Mercedes-Benz and MasterCard. It's a huge opportunity for me and one that no one at my age, at least in my company, has ever achieved.
And so in my opinion, just given how pivotal the timing is for me, to have just gotten this promotion and having just started working with these very, very large, important accounts, not just for myself but for my company, it would take all of that away from me.
THE COURT: One of the reasons we scheduled the case the way we did, so that people would have all day Friday instead of every day having some piece of it taken, was to try to mitigate the impact that people would have in their jobs, that they could have a full day, at least, if not -- as well as whatever else they might be able to do after hours otherwise.
Does that mitigate the impact at all?
JUROR: Unfortunately, no. Because as an account manager, what I do is -- every single day I need to be basically responsible for the delivery of the campaigns. So by "delivery," I mean they have a budget to spend for media that we purchase on their behalf based on their plan. If I'm not there at all times during working hours, then -- even now I'm sort of missing out on what could be, you know, very important delivery issues for this company -- for both companies.
I don't think that one day a week will allow me to retain my position as an account manager on either account.
THE COURT: Have you talked about this with your employer?
JUROR: I have.
THE COURT: And what have they said about it?
JUROR: They said I won't lose my job but that I will not be able to stay on the accounts.
THE COURT: Let me turn to a couple of other questions. First, 29, which is about social media.
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: 29 and 30. I guess -- given what you've told us about your job, I guess you spend a good bit of time on things like social media?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: You specifically said in 29 that you comment or post on Reddit.
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: And I think later in the questionnaire you said that you've actually commented there about this case.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
JUROR: I don't know if you recall, but Reddit was somehow involved in trying to investigate after the bombings had happened, trying to figure out who it was based on all of the pictures. They obviously were wrong about most of it.
But at the time -- I was home on the 19th, I think it was, when everyone -- I lived in Weston at the time, and so I was told not to leave my house -- I was posting on it I think just with regards to being locked down.
But I did follow the sort of community crowd-sourced investigation with quite a bit of interest.
THE COURT: So that was while the events were unfolding still?
JUROR: That's correct.
THE COURT: Since then, and particularly since the charges have been made, have you commented on the case?
JUROR: I haven't commented on the case in social media, no. At least Reddit, at least.
THE COURT: On Number 30 you said you browse Facebook occasionally?
JUROR: Yeah, I use Facebook.
THE COURT: Checking on friends and things?
JUROR: Yeah, I'm not a very frequent poster, but I browse.
THE COURT: Any involvement with issues in the case on Facebook?
JUROR: No, not me specifically.
THE COURT: I'd like you to look at Questions 43 and 46 which ask you about perhaps experience with or attitudes towards law enforcement people.
JUROR: Sure.
THE COURT: In 43 you talk about a cousin, I guess --
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: -- who was -- is in an incident and you think the officer is not being truthful.
JUROR: That's what I was told.
THE COURT: And in 46, we asked if you had any strongly positive or negative views about law enforcement, and you said, "In general I do not."
Can you amplify on those two answers?
JUROR: Sure. I think recently there's been, obviously, a lot in the news regarding law enforcement. I think it's a small subset of the law enforcement community. But I do think it's pretty clear that there are certain people who taking advantage of their power in law enforcement. So in general, I think that we're looking at a group of people who are good, but there's people who are not good mixed in.
THE COURT: Would you be able to fairly assess the reliability of testimony or evidence from law enforcement people on an individualized basis, I guess, or would some generalized views of how law enforcement people may behave -- would that influence you?
JUROR: I think with regards to this case I should be able to, you know, not be biased against law enforcement testimony.
THE COURT: In other words, we ask jurors to take every witness as the witness appears and assess that witness specifically and not applying preconceived ideas about anybody, whether they're law enforcement or any other category.
Do you think as a juror you would be able to do that?
JUROR: To witnesses?
THE COURT: Yeah.
JUROR: Yeah, I could be impartial to the witnesses.
THE COURT: Question 59 has an interesting answer. It says your mother's family was forced to leave Egypt?
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Could you tell us about that.
JUROR: This is paraphrasing the story as I've been told it, but my grandfather was a Ph.D. in Egypt for --
THE COURT: This would be your mother's father?
JUROR: Yes.
-- geography.
They're Christian -- Coptic Orthodox Christians.
He wrote his thesis on the Fertile Crescent and referred to Israel as Israel -- and this was in the late 1960s when this was was not recognized by Egypt. They took away his Ph.D. and actually forced him to stay in Egypt as a punishment so that he could not pursue his academic career.
He eventually was able to somehow sneak out or something and went to Pennsylvania where he was able to get his Ph.D. back and then teach at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. But it was because Nasser was the head of the Muslim regime at the time who took great exception to his thesis.
THE COURT: Would that family history have any impact on your fair-mindedness in this case?
JUROR: You know, my grandpa is still alive and I grew up with him in the household. He's a very biased person as a result of all the things that happened to him. So I did grow up hearing quite a bit of that. I don't think that the religious aspect of things is -- well, frankly, it's kind of hard for me to ignore that this extremism seems to happen pretty regularly in that sect, and I think that I would have a tough time disassociating the two things.
THE COURT: A little further down on the same page you answered that you think that the "war on terror" is overblown or exaggerated. Could you amplify on that?
JUROR: I think by that I mean that at this point in time I haven't really seen a whole lot of -- I don't think it's accomplished anything tangible that I can point to. So I think that at a certain point it's just a huge drain on our country.
THE COURT: In Question 75 we asked about conversations you may have had with others about your possible jury service here, and one of the things you said was that you were told how cool it was and that you get a chance to sentence him to death.
Can you tell us what the circumstances were of that conversation?
JUROR: Yeah. I live with several other males my age, a very testosterone-driven household. They think that it's very cool and they very much want me to sentence him to death.
THE COURT: If you were a juror, would you do what they wanted or would you make up your own mind?
JUROR: Well, I would sentence him to death but not because of them.
THE COURT: Well, that gets us to some of the questions about that. You, first of all, in Question 77 answered that you had formed an opinion that he was guilty and that he should receive the death penalty, and further indicated that you didn't think you'd be able to set those conclusions aside if you were a juror in the case. You also told us later that on a scale of 1 to 10, you're somewhere in the middle as to the death penalty generally, and that you -- in the next question, 90, that you could vote to impose it or vote to impose a sentence of life imprisonment depending on the facts of the case, right?
So I guess with all of those -- let me add that in Question 95 and 96, specifically with respect to this defendant, you said you could conscientiously vote for the death penalty or you could conscientiously vote for life imprisonment depending on the evidence.
Understanding that you've obviously heard things about the case beforehand, is it your self-evaluation that you would be unable to alter any ideas you have now if -- based on evidence that was produced at the trial? In other words, is there no possibility that you could alter your assessment of the matter based on what you heard at trial or --
JUROR: I can't imagine any evidence that would change how I feel about what happened and what I think happened in that scenario, during the bombings, and afterwards, in fact.
THE COURT: Do you feel committed to a position because you've expressed it?
JUROR: I feel committed to the position because that's very genuinely how I feel about this case.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. You may step down.
JUROR: Should I leave this?
THE COURT: Yes. Leave that there. Thank you.
(The juror is excused.)
THE COURT: Good morning.
JUROR: Good morning.
THE COURT: Juror No. 6.
Have you been able to abide by the instruction I gave the group last time, to avoid any discussion of the case or any exposure to media accounts of the case?
JUROR: Yup.
THE COURT: Tell us a little bit about your job. You're a project manager at John Hancock?
JUROR: Yup, for John Hancock. I manage their real estate construction projects, construction for tenants in their buildings; day-to-day operations: interaction with all the business units, security, cleaning, all that different stuff.
THE COURT: John Hancock, of course, was a sponsor of the marathon.
JUROR: Yup.
THE COURT: Were you at -- where do you work? Do you work at the Prudential Center location?
JUROR: 200 Berkeley, right there.
THE COURT: Yeah. Were you there that day?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: I think you told us later on in the questionnaire, I think it was Question 80, that at least one coworker was there on the occasion?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: Was he involved in some way?
JUROR: Yeah. One of my direct coworkers -- because part of real estate is security -- with John Hancock being the major sponsor it's his responsibility at the security at the finish line with all the John Hancock executives and stuff at the finish line.
THE COURT: Was he at the finish line?
JUROR: He was, yes.
THE COURT: Was he injured in any way?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: Have you talked to him in detail about his day?
JUROR: No, he doesn't like to talk about it.
THE COURT: If you were a juror in the case, would you feel any pressure to be loyal to John Hancock in a way that would cause you to have a biased view of the evidence?
JUROR: I don't think so.
THE COURT: How long have you been with the company?
JUROR: Seven years.
THE COURT: Just on a similar tack, I guess, I think you told us in a couple of places, maybe at least one, that your wife is a nurse at Mass General --
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: -- and that she had some role in treating victims?
JUROR: She did.
THE COURT: Could you give us an idea of what you understand she was doing? I mean, was she a surgical nurse? Was she --
JUROR: ICU nurse.
THE COURT: ICU. Is that her regular station?
JUROR: Yes, it is. That's her regular floor, is an ICU floor.
THE COURT: Okay. I imagine you've talked to her about it?
JUROR: Yup, she talked about it when she'd come home from work.
THE COURT: Would that have any effect on your fairness and impartiality in a case like this -- in this case? I shouldn't say "like this." In this case.
JUROR: It's tough because it hit my wife hard, the stuff she had to do with the patients.
THE COURT: Okay. I know it's a little hard to assess the impact of emotions.
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: But -- so, the question is: Would you be able to put yourself in a frame of mind where you could commit to evaluating the case on the evidence, or do you think, you know, because you come home every night you would feel some pull that would prevent you from doing that, I guess? And this is kind of a question that maybe nobody can answer, but you're the best person to do it.
JUROR: I possibly could, yes.
THE COURT: All right. You use Facebook a little bit?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: Could you look at Question 30? We have your questionnaire in front of you. I can't quite read what you wrote. That's what I was going to ask you.
JUROR: That's fine.
THE COURT: It's on page 11.
JUROR: Question 30?
THE COURT: Yeah. I can't read the first line.
JUROR: "Read frequently; comment rarely."
THE COURT: I see. Okay. And when you do look at it, what are the kinds of things you look at?
JUROR: Mostly involving my hockey league. That's where they kind of post the schedule and everybody talks about the games and stuff. Just keeping up with friends' stuff and their kids and stuff.
THE COURT: Have you commented about this case on Facebook?
JUROR: Not that I can recall.
THE COURT: Question 34 you told us you have a cousin in the Tewksbury police.
JUROR: I do.
THE COURT: How long has he been a police officer?
JUROR: He's been a police officer for about maybe ten years or so, right about there.
THE COURT: Is he somebody you see frequently or --
JUROR: Several times a year.
THE COURT: Obviously there will be a lot of law enforcement evidence, people, witnesses and so on. Because you have a relative in that line of work, would that have any influence on your impartiality? Would you tend to favor law enforcement people?
JUROR: No, I don't think so.
THE COURT: You said in Question 46, I guess -- anytime you want to look -- I'll try to give you the numbers and anytime you want to look at it, just feel free. You said you have a great deal of respect for police officers, putting their lives at risk every day.
JUROR: Yup.
THE COURT: That's not a surprising feeling for somebody to have. Would it be something that would be of -- a strength that would influence your assessment -- your critical assessment of testimony from law enforcement people?
JUROR: No. I mean, facts are facts.
THE COURT: If you'd look at Question 59, summarizing, you say that -- what you call general Muslim followers should speak out against extremism.
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: Is that the gist of what you were getting at?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: Can you amplify on that?
JUROR: I just think that -- I don't think the Muslim religion in general is a bad religion; I just don't think the general population of the religion speak out enough against the extreme side.
THE COURT: Is that a view that would have some effect on your ability to fairly judge the evidence in this case?
JUROR: No. Facts are facts.
THE COURT: I'd like you to look at Question 77. And that answer actually is a multiple-part question and it asks a number of things.
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: You said that you had formed an opinion about the defendant's guilt but that you were unsure about the penalty that he should get. Let me ask you first about the first part.
You have formed an opinion based on accounts, I imagine, that you've seen in the media and elsewhere.
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: The government has the burden, of course, of proving each proposition at trial by evidence, and that evidence is likely to be perhaps greater in volume and amount, and you'll actually be sitting in the courtroom evaluating it. Can you tell us whether you have a sense of your ability to assess the trial evidence and possibly either revise or stick with your position as it stands today? In other words, is it a position that you think you would firmly hold no matter what was shown at trial, or would you be able to evaluate the trial evidence, perhaps come to the same conclusion but perhaps alter it if you thought that was called for by your evaluation of the evidence?
JUROR: Yeah. No, I could -- I mean, with the media it's very high-level; there's no detail. I mean, until you actually know the details you don't know everything. That's just gut reaction from media and high level.
THE COURT: And is that perhaps why you answered "unsure" to the other penalty questions?
JUROR: Yeah. Yeah.
THE COURT: We've asked about your general attitude toward the death penalty, and you -- this is Question 88 -- and you said, "I'm for the death penalty but only if," it looks like, "100 percent no doubt of guilt."
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: Can you maybe rearticulate that?
JUROR: Yeah, I just think, you know, to put somebody to death, it has to be 100 percent no doubt, rock solid, concrete that the person's guilty.
THE COURT: In Question 90 we gave you some options as to what might express your view, and you said you're in favor of the death penalty but could vote for a sentence of life imprisonment if you thought that was called for by the law and the facts of the case.
Is that an accurate statement of your position?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: So you've heard my instructions today. You may hear things that might tend to -- we call them aggravating factors -- might tend to weigh on the side of a more serious penalty, and mitigating factors that might weigh on the side of a lesser. You think you'd be able to take account of both aggravating and mitigating as you found them to be -- as you and the other jurors found them to be and make a judgment as to the appropriate penalty?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: And go either way depending on your assessment?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: And that, I guess, is reflected -- if you'd look at your answers to Questions 95 and 96, we asked if, depending on your assessment, you could vote, A, for the death penalty; or, B, for life in prison without release?
JUROR: Yeah.
THE COURT: And that's your view?
JUROR: Correct.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
JUROR: Thank you.
(The juror is excused.)
MS. CLARKE: Your Honor, is this an appropriate time to ask the Court about follow-up with a juror like that?
THE COURT: What would you like to do?
MS. CLARKE: The concern that I have is that -- there's two: One is on the question of guilt, presumption of guilt. And the Court had the juror essentially say, Well, I would consider the evidence. The question is really whether there could be a presumption of innocence at this point in time.
And the second thing is a Morgan question. You know, this is a juror in the abstract saying I can take aggravating and mitigating, but it really is if you're 100 percent guilty that you're going to get death in a case like this. So it's the case-specific Morgan questions that we've asked the Court to ask. Where there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of intentional murder, weapons of mass destruction, death of three people, maiming of many others, the death of a child and the death of a police officer, is there anything that would make you sentence other than death?
THE COURT: Well, I'm not going to ask those kinds of specific -- case-specific questions. You call them Morgan. I think they're stakeout questions, so...
And as to the other, I think the examination was adequate.
MS. CLARKE: Right. The other area here was that there was some conclusion as to guilt based on what he had read, but we don't know what he read, what he knows, what he has heard in specifics. This was a question that was removed from the questionnaire, with the Court -- with our understanding that the Court intended to follow up with these jurors on the content of publicity that they have read.
THE COURT: I think we have adequate information from him on that.
(Pause.)
(The juror enters the courtroom.)
THE COURT: Good morning.
Juror No. 7.
JUROR: Good morning.
THE COURT: Tell us a little bit about what your employment is.
JUROR: Me and my fiancée run an Italian deli in an area around here. I cook mostly, do a lot of the prep work. We work from about six-thirty in the morning to six-thirty at night every night.
THE COURT: But you think you'd be able to serve as a juror on the schedule that I've described to you?
JUROR: I don't believe so due to the fact that my fiancée is now five and a half months pregnant, and to ask her to be there by herself for those hours, it's just a hardship that wouldn't -- after discussing everything with her, I don't see it being feasible at this time.
THE COURT: Is it possible to get other help?
JUROR: For the time -- with the time slot -- I mean, we constantly look for help, and it comes and goes, so I don't know.
THE COURT: We asked people whether they use social media. You said you don't but that you sometimes use Instagram.
JUROR: Yeah, occasionally on the Instagram. As far as Facebook, Twitter, all the other stuff, no.
THE COURT: What do you do with Instagram?
JUROR: Pictures of my children. That's about it.
THE COURT: You have a brother who is in active service in the Marine Corps?
JUROR: Yeah, San Diego.
THE COURT: But he has not, as far as you know, been in combat situations?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: How long has he been in the Marines?
JUROR: Ten years. Nine, ten years now.
THE COURT: So it's a career for him?
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Would his service have any effect or impact on your ability to assess the facts of this case fairly?
JUROR: I don't speak to him, so no.
THE COURT: We gave you the questionnaire there. Let me ask you to look at Question 77. This was about whether you had formed any opinions about this case either with respect to the question of guilt or innocence or about the question of a potential penalty, and you wrote "unsure" on each of those.
Can you tell us what you meant to convey by that?
JUROR: I'm not really one to form an opinion on anything until I know the facts. That's just the general nature I take on a lot of avenues in life. So why people do things at times or why people make the decisions they make, I'm not one to form the opinion on anything until I actually see the facts myself.
THE COURT: So if you were a juror in the case, would you be able to wait until you heard all the evidence that was presented by the parties and make a decision based on that evidence?
JUROR: That's the general approach I like to take.
THE COURT: We asked the general question about whether you had views on the death penalty, and you said you didn't. That's Question 88, if you want to look on.
In the next question we asked on a scale of 1 to 10 where you may place your attitude toward the death penalty and you chose a 5. And then on the next page, Question 90, you selected Option D, which said you were not for or against it, you could vote for it, either life imprisonment or the death penalty, depending on what you thought were called for by the case.
Is that an accurate representation of your views?
JUROR: Yeah. Just like that last question, when I said, you know, my general views on things are the facts. I don't know what crime would commit that [sic], but once again, the facts -- I would have to hear other facts before I could make a decision on that. I'm not strongly for the death penalty; I'm not against the death penalty. I really have no opinion on it.
THE COURT: Let me ask you about Questions 95 and 96 because your answer there seems to be contrary to what you just said.
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: There it asks if you could conscientiously, A, vote for the death penalty; or conscientiously, B -- or B, conscientiously vote for life imprisonment, you know, presenting the two options, and you said no to both. Could you explain that?
JUROR: I took the question as asking if hearing the facts the death penalty was permitted in this case, would it, you know, persuade me to go either way in the future. That's the way I took it and that's why I answered that question no. So maybe I misunderstood the question.
THE COURT: Okay. So let me see if I -- I want to be sure we understand. Is it your view, of yourself, that having considered all the evidence in the case and the instructions of the law and so on, including consideration with respect to guilt or innocence where the government has the burden, and including the weighing of considerations for penalty including, as you heard me say this morning, aggravating factors which the government has to prove and any mitigating factors that might be shown by the defense, taking all of that, would one possible outcome be that you could conscientiously vote for the death penalty?
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: And would one possible outcome be that you could conscientiously, based on your assessment, vote for life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty?
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
JUROR: Thank you.
(The juror is excused.)