6.Scope of Voir Dire on Pretrial Publicity
6 linesMR. WEINREB: Your Honor, before we call the next juror, I again want to interpose a general objection to asking about the specifics of what the jurors -- potential jurors may or may not have heard in the news. I think that's not really a follow-up question; that is an additional question that was proposed and rejected. And I'm not saying that there wouldn't necessarily be cases where follow-up about specific things might not be called for; I'm just saying it seems to now be a general question that's being asked of every juror in every case, regardless of whether there's any special reason for it.
And I don't think that's appropriate, given both the law, which says that it makes no difference as long as the juror is not going to be influenced -- have a juror impartial by it, and also given the process that led to the formulation of this questionnaire and litigation over various questions.
MR. BRUCK: I don't know if the Court needs to hear me. I would like to be heard.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
MR. BRUCK: Our understanding, and the discussion about the questionnaire, was that those questions would not be on the questionnaire but that content questions about publicity would be fair game, or might be in the Court's discretion at this stage. And especially for -- we think that there are some jurors that one cannot really gauge their impartiality without some probing. There are a couple of jurors who seem very eager to be on the jury, and some of those jurors may be completely sincere and some of them may actually be harboring biases that they're not disclosing.
This was a juror who works for Mass. General, albeit not in the building, and didn't recall that the President of the United States visited Mass. General a few days after the bombing. Now, that's not impossible, but it's a little bit of a red flag that she is trying to make it seem that she is a complete blank slate. She is a highly educated, very responsible lady, and there's an issue, that's all.
THE COURT: Okay. We're getting a little too specific to the juror. I think the objection is a little broader than the juror.
There's no hard, clear line here. The purpose of the person-to-person voir dire is essentially to follow up on questions from the questionnaire. So I agree to that extent, that it should generally be in the realm of follow-up, but follow-up can be expansively understood as well.
I do think that some of the questions are too leading. I'm interested in what the jurors say in their own formulations. I have -- I'm trying to avoid it myself. I sometimes summarize just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding them, which I guess restates their evidence, but I want -- in the first instance it should be from them without the answer being presented to them in the question. So I just make that comment as well.
MR. BRUCK: The last thing I'd like to say for the record is that the question about what stands out was a question that was included in the Skilling questionnaire and cited with approval by the United States Supreme Court, excluded from our questionnaire, and we think that's all the more reason why it should be asked.