This week, in Rodriguez v. Lagomasino, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a defense verdict in an auto accident case because the trial judge failed to strike two questionable jurors for cause. During voir dire, prospective Juror Gutierrez said he would not favor either side and would be “in the middle,” but he had also said his wife had been in an auto accident and his insurance company was going double his rates. He said he did not know if he could put his wife’s situation aside. Another prospective juror, Mr. Hillberry said he thought there should be caps on damages because of all the frivolous lawsuits in our litigious society. Juror Hillberry said he doubted his “thoughts” would come into play in this particular case, but he admitted it was possible they could. The Miami trial judge, Daryl Trawick, refused to strike the jurors for cause because “based upon their responses” he felt ”they were rehabilitated.”
The Third District reversed based on Florida law’s well established ”reasonable doubt” standard, and cited Nash v. General Motors Corp. 734 So. 2d 437 (Fla 3d DCA 1999), “When any reasonable doubt exists as to whether a juror possesses the state of mind necessary to render an impartial verdict based solely on the evidence submtted and the instructions on the law given to her by the court, she should be excused.”
January 26th, 2008
The Harris Corporation released a poll on jury duty yesterday. Harris Poll on Jury Duty. The poll contains some interesting findings on who is most likely to show up for jury duty and actually end up serving on a jury. It also shows that Americans, by a factor of 2 to 1, would trust a jury more than a judge to arrive at a fair verdict in a case. Sadly, the poll reveals that many Americans are still shirking their civic responsibility — three-quarters of Americans have never served on a jury, and over half have never attended jury duty. The poll is worth taking a look at, and it provides some interesting information on how Americans currently view trial by jury in this country.
January 22nd, 2008
A jury in Miami awarded $3.9 million to the mother of a young woman who was killed by a drunk driver. After the verdict, the State Farm defense attorneys found out for the first time that the jury foreman’s father had been an alcoholic. They asked for a new trial alleging that the foreman had concealed this important information from them during jury selection. The trial court denied the request, and the appellate court affirmed the verdict holding that a key requirement to establishing prejudicial concealment of information by a juror during voir dire is a “clear, direct question” requiring a response by the venire member. “No such question was posed here.” So the verdict was upheld. Hood v. Valle, 33 FLW D235a (Fla 3rd DCA 1/16/08).
But it’s not that simple. In Hood, two panels of jurors were questioned separately during voir dire. Apparently, the first panel was seated in the courtroom while the second panel was being questioned. And although there were questions asked of the second panel concerning family members with substance abuse problems — to which two members of that panel responded that their fathers had been alcoholics — no such question had been asked of the first panel from which the foreperson ultimately emerged. The first panel had earlier been asked general questions concerning whether “anything about drinking” might affect their consideration of the case, or whether they had any “strong feelings about people who drink?” But, as noted by the Court, they had never been asked the ”clear, direct question” whether they had a parent who was or had been an alcoholic.
As a result of the inadequate questioning, the appellate court concluded that the first panel (sitting separately) had no reason to believe that they were to participate in the questioning of the second panel, or that they had some duty to supplement their own previous answers in response to later questioning. “No member of the first panel, including the subject juror, responded to questions addressed to the second panel.” Accordingly, the Court did not find any indication that the juror in question concealed information during the questioning, and therefore the jury’s verdict was affirmed.
January 17th, 2008
RSS
Feed