Court: Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Civil Division - In this asbestos action, a California state court set aside a $107 million verdict against defendants Union Carbide Corp., Elementis Chemicals...more
Last week, I wrote about the defense team in the recent criminal case against Roger Stone, and their post-conviction focus on the alleged bias of the jury foreperson. More recently, I saw news of a parallel tack being taking...more
The idea of a courtroom trial is that it is a sealed system. The fact-finders arrive in a neutral state of mind, they receive and review only what is vetted and presented in court, and then they deliberate to a verdict...more
Precedential Opinions of Note - Third Circuit Affirms Constitutionality of New Jersey’s Non-Monetary Bail Reform - Holland v. Rosen (July 9, 2018), No. 17-3104 http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/173104p.pdf Unanimous...more
At the end of a two-week trial last Spring, in the case of Montone v. City of Jersey City, a federal jury awarded nine former city police officers $2.17 million in a dispute over promotions. Three weeks later, counsel for the...more
Add this one to the list of reasons why sequestering the jury can be a problem, and more generally, to the “Juries can do strange things” category. The night before deliberations, at the end of a five-week murder trial, four...more
The no-impeachment rule is that once a jury’s verdict has been entered, it cannot generally be called into question based on the comments or conclusions during jury deliberations. In Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the U.S....more
It seems that almost everyone uses social media today. Of course, this means that most every juror is a social media user, and that courts are dealing with the thorny questions that arise out of the proliferation of social...more
The Rhode Island Supreme Court’s recent decision in Roma v. Moreira, No. 2014-141-Appeal, 2015 R.I. LEXIS 106 (R.I. Nov. 13, 2015) serves as a reminder to trial counsel that if you hear something that leads you to believe...more
Every trial attorney’s worst fear is a saboteur juror, lying in wait to poison the jury’s assumed impartiality. Think John Cusack’s character in The Runaway Jury. Voir dire is supposed to allow a trial attorney to ferret out...more