Sixth Circuit Finds E-Mail by Juror That the Other Jurors Pressured Her to Find the Defendant Guilty is Inadmissible

Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b) states the following:

(1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these matters.

(2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether:

(A) extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention;

(B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror; or

(C) a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict form.

So, would Rule 606(b) permit or preclude an African American defendant for presenting evidence that the other jurors pressured the lone African American juror to find him guilty? That was the question addressed by the Sixth Circuit in its opinion today in United States v, Brooks, 2021 WL 451010 (6th Cir. 2021).

In Brooks, after Demetrius Brooks was convicted “of being a felon in possession of a firearm, the lone African-American juror emailed the court that the other jurors had pressured her into a guilty verdict.” Specifically, the juror wrote:

I feel morally responsible to myself, the court, and to the defendant[ ] to let you all know that during deliberations I was pressured by other members of the jury to select a guilty verdict when that is not what I believe to be true. I believe that the[re] was reasonable doubt and more evidence was need[ed] to actually find the defendant guilty. I was told by the members that I was not using common sense and was berated every time I brought up the lack of evidence. During selection we were asked if we would be able to apply the same scrutiny to the testimony of the witnesses because they were officers and everyone answered yes. However, immediately in deliberations the other jurors sided with the police even though they all agreed that the[re] was enough lack of evidence to cause a reasonable doubt….But they said they are leaning more towards guilty because the cops say he is guilty. I am fine with whatever consequence happens to me because I allowed myself to be peer press[ur]ed into a guilty verdict.

The Sixth Circuit, however, found that this e-mail was inadmissible. First, the court noted that “Brooks makes no attempt to fit the juror’s emailed note into any of the narrow rule-based exceptions to the no-impeachment rule in Rule 606(b)(1).” Second, the court found that the e-mail didn’t satisfy the exception created by the Supreme Court in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado for evidence of racial bias during deliberations. According to the court,

the juror’s email did not even mention race, let alone suggest that other jurors made race-based remarks. Yet, as the Seventh Circuit noted when rejecting a nearly identical claim, Peña-Rodriguez “requires a clear statement of overt racial bias.”…For another thing, the juror’s email indicates that the other jurors were critical of the juror (and her purported failure to rely on common sense), not of Brooks. Yet, as we noted in a case in which a juror made derogatory remarks about other jurors, the challenged statement must suggest not just that a juror harbored racial bias, but also that this racial bias played a significant role “in the juror’s vote to convict” the defendant….And here, the juror was complaining about the other jurors’ alleged undue reliance on the police when voting to convict Brooks-not about their reliance on any racial bias when voting to convict him.

-CM