6.Individual Voir Dire — Juror No. 11
88 linesJUROR: Do I sit?
THE COURT: Please.
JUROR: Good afternoon.
THE COURT: Good afternoon. It's getting there. I appreciate your patience.
Have you been able to, since the last time you were here, avoid any exposure to the case in the media or from talking with anybody?
JUROR: I don't talk to anybody, so, no, I don't --
THE COURT: Okay. You have not talked about the case with anybody?
JUROR: No one's business.
THE COURT: Tell me a little bit about your work. You're a software engineer?
JUROR: I am a contractor presently. It's going to present a little bit of a financial hardship if I'm going to be here for three months. That's probably a $20,000 hit I'm going to have to take.
THE COURT: How do you organize your business and operate? What do you do?
JUROR: I work at home for a contracting position. I work for a company here in Boston. I do programming work.
THE COURT: You do it at home?
JUROR: Yes, I do.
THE COURT: So you do it -- are you on a daily business schedule, or do you kind of make your own schedule? In other words, do you have to be available when somebody else is in the office nine to five, or do you make your own arrangements?
JUROR: I have to be available during the day.
THE COURT: Available remotely?
JUROR: Available remotely, yes. They contact me via email or they call me on the phone.
THE COURT: How are you -- how do you earn your compensation? Is it you -- you're a contractor. You bill for your hours or something?
JUROR: I do.
THE COURT: Is that it?
What kinds of programs do you work on?
JUROR: I work for a financial institute right now. They do all sorts of information on their financial business, mergers and so on.
THE COURT: You told us in the questionnaire that you and your wife have two patents.
JUROR: Yes, we do.
THE COURT: What are the subject matters of the patents.
JUROR: One is for a towel rack that -- it's a towel that doesn't fall on the floor. The other one is this device for dieters and diabetics, for bariatrics people, to measure their food.
THE COURT: How measure? By weight, by volume?
JUROR: You can actually put the food in it if you want to. Most people just put it off to the side and realize what they're supposed to eat and not supposed to eat.
THE COURT: When do the patents date from?
JUROR: The first one is from 2001. The last one is from 2011, I believe.
THE COURT: With respect -- so with respect to social media, you use them sometimes?
JUROR: I use Facebook on occasion.
THE COURT: Anything else?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: Have you used it to comment about this case at all?
JUROR: (Shakes head.)
THE COURT: Or view comments about the case?
JUROR: I don't, no. That's no one's business.
THE COURT: We asked some questions about religious practices or views. One of them was whether you're familiar with the teachings of Islam. And you checked the box that said -- and you can look at it if you want. That's your questionnaire -- "not at all familiar." Then you wrote underneath it, "And don't care to learn." Could you tell us what prompted you to add that?
JUROR: I'm a Christian, and I don't really want to -- I don't really care to learn anybody else's religion. That's my own personal choice. I'm a lax Christian to start with anyway. Why should I learn somebody else's religion? Why is it important it me?
THE COURT: So is it to other religions generally, or is it to any religion, Islam --
JUROR: Any religion. I don't care about anybody else's religion. Practice what you please. Don't throw it in my face.
THE COURT: So it wasn't particular to Islam?
JUROR: No.
THE COURT: I'd like you to use the questionnaire and turn to Page 20 if you would.
JUROR: Uh, oh. Did I say something bad?
THE COURT: No. I just want to explore. Question 77.
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: We asked about, as a result of what you've seen or read in the media and maybe from other sources, whether you'd formed an opinion about the defendant's guilt or not and about what -- if he were guilty, what penalty might be imposed.
JUROR: Okay.
THE COURT: You checked "unsure" throughout. Then you wrote, "I am unsure at this stage." Could you perhaps tell us what you were thinking when you gave us those answers?
JUROR: I'm unsure. I don't know this guy over here from Adam. They arrested him. I don't know anything about it. I wasn't really following the case.
THE COURT: So if you were a juror and had to decide those questions, whether he was proved guilty or not by the government and, if so, what the penalty should be, what would you -- what would you base your judgment on?
JUROR: On evidence, what everyone said, what the witnesses would say.
THE COURT: Okay.
JUROR: I don't get swayed by the media. I don't get swayed by anybody.
THE COURT: We asked you -- I'm looking now at Page 23.
JUROR: Uh, oh.
THE COURT: We asked you, in Question No. 88 -- it was noted that there are 17 counts in the Indictment that charge Mr. Tsarnaev with a capital crime. And if he's found guilty of those, then the consideration will be what the penalty would be. And we asked for your general views on the death penalty. What you wrote is, "Justice is justice." Could you perhaps expand on that and tell us what generally your view of the death penalty is?
JUROR: If you deserve it, you deserve to die. You know the -- we live in a society, if you break the rules, you don't deserve to live with the rest of us. I don't think that's really hard to understand. I don't think wasting away in prison does anybody any good. It's not a deterrent.
THE COURT: We asked on the next question for you to kind of give us, on a scale of 1 to 10, what your opinion of the death penalty was, with 10 being "strongly favor." And you circled 9. Does that accurately represent --
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: So it's not 10, right? You had some -- you stopped --
JUROR: Oh.
THE COURT: From the top of the scale.
JUROR: Okay.
THE COURT: Do you have some reservation about it in some circumstances?
JUROR: Only if you execute the wrong guy. But if you execute the right guy, I have no problem whatsoever.
THE COURT: If you look at the next page, we asked again a series of multiple choice, about how you would describe your feelings. The one you circled said that you're strongly in favor of the death penalty, which you just said.
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: And you would have a difficult time voting for life imprisonment, without the possibility of release, regardless of the facts. The next question said you would never do it. This said you would have some difficulty doing it. The question is: If the defendant were convicted of a capital offense and the jury proceeded to determine what the appropriate penalty would be, could you meaningfully consider both aggravating and mitigating circumstances in deciding on whether the penalty should be death or life imprisonment without release? Could you give meaningful consideration to both aspects?
JUROR: I didn't understand the question. I apologize.
THE COURT: Okay. If the defendant's found guilty of any offense that carries the possibility of a death penalty -- obviously, if he's not convicted of an offense that carries the death penalty, the death penalty question goes away. So it arises if he's convicted of a crime that could potentially be punished by death.
In that circumstance, the parties will present -- the government will present aggravating circumstances that would argue, perhaps, in favor of the higher penalty. The defense will suggest that there are mitigating circumstances that should be taken into account that would point against the death penalty and towards life imprisonment instead.
And the question is: Could you give meaningful consideration to all the evidence, including the evidence of mitigating circumstances, in deciding whether, in this case, the death penalty should be imposed or life --
JUROR: You're asking if I can discern the difference. Yes, I can.
THE COURT: You can?
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Give meaningful consideration --
JUROR: I will.
THE COURT: -- to things that would point against the death penalty?
JUROR: I could.
THE COURT: We asked you in sort of summary form in Question 95 and 96 something similar, and that is, in 95, if you thought, after hearing all the evidence, assuming a finding of guilty, you could (a) in 95, conscientiously vote for the death penalty; or (b), in 96, you also said you could conscientiously vote for life imprisonment. And I would gather that is dependent on how you consider the evidence in the case, is that --
JUROR: That's correct.
THE COURT: So is it -- while you tend to be strongly in favor of the death penalty, you would not automatically impose it?
JUROR: That's correct.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
JUROR: Thank you, everyone. Do I keep -- what do I do?
COURT CLERK: Just follow the --
MS. CONRAD: There's a matter that needs to be heard at sidebar about the next juror.
THE COURT: Before we see him? Hold off for a second.