Robert G. Morvillo started this column 29 years ago, providing timely and insightful advice for practitioners. Bob passed away unexpectedly in December. This column is not only dedicated to him, but indeed, is the topic he chose prior to his passing.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a fair trial decided by an impartial jury, the right to due process, and the right to be present at all stages of a trial. On occasion, these guarantees are threatened by the misconduct of jurors selected to hear the case and sit in judgment of the defendant. Even when a juror’s actions implicate a defendant’s constitutional rights, however, such a violation rarely results in the reversal of a conviction handed down by the panel on which that juror sat. Instead, courts typically uphold the judgment. Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated that “[a]llegations of juror misconduct, incompetency, or inattentiveness, raised for the first time…after the verdict, seriously disrupt the finality of the process.”1
