Court Rules Judges Responsible for Searching Out Biased Jurors
From Associated Press

NEW YORKJudges must root out jurors who use personal
beliefs about race, ethnicity or anything else to disregard the
law in deciding a case, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that judges have a
duty to stop jurors from ignoring the law by issuing firm instructions
or even dismissing jurors.
"A presiding judge possesses both the responsibility and the
authority to dismiss a juror whose refusal or unwillingness to follow
the applicable law becomes known to the judge," the ruling said.
The threejudge panel said the "rule we adopt applies with equal
force whether the juror's refusal to follow the court's instructions
results from a desire to nullify the applicable law or . . . from a
perceived physical threat or from a relationship with one of the
parties."
The practice of disregarding the law to achieve a verdict is
known as "nullification." The panel noted that it has occurred in
cases throughout history, including that of John Peter Zenger, the
publisher of the New York Weekly Journal who was acquitted of
criminal libel in 1735, and in 19th century acquittals in prosecutions
brought under fugitive slave laws.
Tuesday's ruling resulted from an Albany drug case in which a
federal judge dismissed the only black juror from a trial in which all
the defendants were black. The judge found that the juror was
ignoring the evidence in favor of his own preconceived ideas.
The judge concluded that the juror's "motives are immoral, that
he believes that these folks have a right to deal drugs. . . . And I
don't think he would convict them no matter what the evidence
was."

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