6.Limits on Asking Jurors Whether They Want to Serve
13 lines(In open court:)
(The Court entered the room at 11:19 a.m.)
MR. BRUCK: We have a matter before the first juror comes.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. BRUCK: Judge.
THE COURT: Are we on?
MR. CREPEAULT: Yes.
MR. BRUCK: This is a time, I think, when we really need to renew our ability to ask jurors whether they want to be on the jury, and this is in light of what we just discovered regarding Juror 104. Without -- I'm sorry, 140. Without quoting anything, this was a juror who represented -- made representations about her lack of relevant social media use under oath on her questionnaire and gave an obscene statement of exultation on Twitter when the defendant was arrested on April 19th. These are not consistent.
If this juror was, in effect, trying to get onto the jury to carry out the emotion and the intention that she expressed on Twitter on the night this man was arrested, there are very few questions that would get at it. But I would submit that one question that is especially likely to elicit revealing body language or revealing inability to give a glib answer is the question: Do you want to be on this jury? A juror like that would not have known what to say, and we think that this is -- this is not a question that is appropriate in a lot of cases, but we have just seen the most dramatic possible illustration of why it is appropriate in this case.
I don't know how we're going to find these jurors. They are out there. We submitted 32 pages of similar online comments at the beginning of this process of examples of people just like Juror 140. They all come to court on their best behavior. That's the scary part. And we think we should be allowed to ask that question.
THE COURT: I don't think so as a general matter. It may be -- and I had the feeling about one or two people we've seen over the last week so that it was appropriate to go ahead and do that because of something they indicated here. With respect to Juror 140, it's obvious you don't need to ask the question to find her. You can do it online. I don't want to revisit that.
It's not absolute. Generally, no. But if there's something in the demeanor or in the answers here that suggests an inappropriate eagerness to participate in this because there's an agenda, then by -- I think we should explore it, by all means. But I don't think we should ask everybody that question. You know -- anyway, just -- if this is something that arises as we are otherwise examining, that may be -- that may be appropriate, and we can do that. I think we have, as a matter of fact, in a couple of questions.
MS. CONRAD: May I just add something, your Honor?
THE COURT: P.S.?
MS. CONRAD: There very well may be many jurors whose questionnaires look like Juror 140's, totally neutral on everything, haven't made up their mind about anything, don't have an opinion about anything. And it just so happens that we have her Twitter account. For many of those other jurors, we may not be able to locate it, identify it, and so forth. And I think we should be -- given the high emotions about this case, we should be -- err on the side certainly about -- of trying to identify those jurors who present one face to the court and another face to their friends, families, and the public.
THE COURT: Okay. I understand.