Jury Issues

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Lemurel E. Williams

Case No.: 15-1194

Officials: FLAUM, WILLIAMS, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Jury Issues

The jury verdict was impermissively coercive, requiring a new trial.

“Had the judge here followed the “wise” approach de‐ scribed in Carraway—that is, had he stopped polling once Juror 1 rejected the verdict—the likelihood of coercion would have been far less substantial.3 Instead, he polled the entire jury, revealing its precise division and putting pressure on Juror 1 as the publicly known lone dissenter. We are confident that the judge did not intend to pressure anyone (it appears he did not hear Juror 1’s response), but the judge’s intentions are not at issue. Blitch, 622 F.3d at 668. Indeed, the judge’s innocent failure to hear Juror 1 led to additional coercive actions: dismissing the jury (which could convey that the judge was eager to end the case4) and publicly polling the entire jury a second time. See Lowenfield, 484 U.S. at 251 (“The court here polled the jury not once, but twice, increasing whatever coercive effect a single poll would have had.”) (Marshall, J., dissenting). So the manner of polling risked coercion to a greater extent than necessary. Given that the continued polling served no purpose at all, departed from the approach we approved in Carraway, and happened twice, the error was “plain” and “obvious.”

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.