1.Seated-Juror Bias Ruling and Hardship Excusal

THE COURT: All right. I met with counsel in chambers this morning before beginning. There are a few matters to take up before we bring in the jury. First of all, during yesterday afternoon's proceedings, in which the Court conducted individual voir dire of a juror, there was a side bar conference during the questioning of the juror and nothing has been put on the record yet about that conference.

The Court had previously met with the parties in chambers and the parties asked, before the Court excused the juror, for a chance for a side bar conference in order to request that additional questions be posed to the juror. That conference did, in fact, take place and each of the parties requested that the Court ask some additional open-ended follow-up questions, which I did. Counsel, is that an accurate representation of the side bar conference? Mr. Kratz?

THE COURT: I also noted, in announcing the Court's decision denying the defense motion to strike the juror, I did not recall, as I went home last evening, whether I expressed the Court's opinion specifically under the criteria of subjective bias and objective bias, as Court's are now required to do. So I wanted to add some points of clarification to the Court's decision.

On the question of subjective bias, the Court, first, was satisfied that all of the answers given by the juror during the individual voir dire were credible. The juror indicated that she did not recognize Detective Remiker by name; in fact, his name was listed on the original jury questionnaire that all of the jurors completed. She did not indicate on that questionnaire that she recognized Detective Remiker by his name. She only realized, when she saw him testify that, in fact, he had been the plaintiff in a civil trial in which she sat as a juror approximately seven years ago. She could not recall whether or not he testified in that trial, which the Court does not find to be that unusual, given the passage of time.

And what that indicates to the Court is that she could not -- or she did not have a recollection as to whether or not she made any judgments of his credibility because she could not even remember if he testified.

The negligence of Detective Remiker was not an issue in that case; apparently it was a rear end collision case involving a couple of other vehicles. So the juror was not required, as part of her duties, to assess negligence that would have involved Detective Remiker. The sole issue with respect to Detective Remiker would have been damages.

There was nothing presented to the Court to suggest that the case involved any unusually emotional issues; that is, there does not appear to be any traumatic injuries involved. The juror's most vivid memory of the trial was that it involved an injury to the lower left lumbar region. She seemed to remember that more than a lot of other details.

And, in conclusion, the juror said nothing about the case would cause her to give Detective Remiker's testimony any more or less weight in this case. She expressed no doubts about that fact and the Court finds her explanation to be credible and reasonable.

On the issue of objective bias, the law is that the focus of the inquiry into objective bias is not upon the individual prospective jurors, or in this case, the individual juror's state of mind, but rather upon whether a reasonable person, in the individual juror's position, could be impartial. That is, even if the juror says she can be impartial, there can be situations in which a reasonable person would have trouble doing that, and the court system does not ask it.

In this case, the Court is satisfied that there's nothing about the facts that have been presented to the Court to suggest that a reasonable person could not be objectively biased. There's been a significant passage of time since the last trial. As the Court has already indicated, the juror knew Detective Remiker only as a party in the case, not in any other capacity.

And the passage of time had been such that she did not even remember his name when filling out the questionnaire. She has no recollection as to whether or not he testified, and that tells the Court that while he may or may not have testified in the case, there's no indications that any recollection of his credibility is present in her mind.

As I indicated earlier, his negligence was not an issue in the case and the injuries were not particularly traumatic or emotional, such that a juror in this juror's position could not be expected to be able to put aside any opinions from the case. For those reasons, the Court is satisfied that the juror should be permitted to stay on the jury.

There's one last item for the Court to take up before we proceed to hear from the parties, and that is, I have informed the attorneys earlier this morning that the Court was notified earlier this morning that a close family member of one of the jurors apparently died overnight. The family member resides in another state and the juror has requested permission to leave the State to attend the funeral. The Court finds that that is a very reasonable request. I'm not going to give the name of the juror on the record, because I don't even know if all the immediate family members have yet been notified. But given the fact that travel is required to a state in a far part of the country, the juror could not reasonably be expected to come back with even a one day absence for postponing the trial and the Court has decided that it's necessary that the juror be excused. Counsel, does either party disagree with that determination?

THE COURT: And your objection is duly noted for the record.

Before we bring in the jury, then, the Court has also been informed that I believe the defense has a matter it wishes to take up before we bring the jurors in.