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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12192 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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IIRC, some users of this website have expressed concern that juries in left-wing cities will be unsympathetic to right-wing defendants. Here we have a mildly interesting example where a left-wing juror was angered by a right-wing defendant's "conspiracy theories", and was upstanding enough to express to the judge concerns that he might not be able to be impartial, but the judge refused to remove him from the jury!

  • A black Muslim felon is indicted on dozens of federal fraud charges regarding his operation of a nonprofit. He conducts his defense, including voir dire and jury selection, pro se (without a lawyer).

  • The venue for this trial is Alameda County, California, where Harris took 75 percent of the votes (85 percent in the city of Oakland) in year 2024. A particular person is selected as an alternate juror. After taking the oath, he approaches the judge to express concerns that he will not be able to be impartial.

    He began by saying, “I was hoping this wasn’t going to be an issue because I stayed engaged for all the hours and everything. And then the defendant spoke, and all that came out was discrimination, conspiracy theories, and police corruption.” He continued: “That just upsets me to no end, because being gay, trans, and non-binary, having bottles thrown at my head when exiting gay bars, being denied housing for being gay, when that’s the only thing [Colar] talked to us about, I’m sorry, that’s just festering in my head right now.” According to Juror 48, there was “no way [he was] going to be able to get that out of [his] head.” He also reacted to Colar’s claim that the prosecution was “turning a small thing into a big thing”: “So there is a thing. That’s just going to stick in my head the entire time.”

    When the court reminded Juror 48 that his task was to evaluate the government’s evidence and decide whether the government met its burden of proof, he did not retreat from his views. He acknowledged that the court had discussed the need for jurors to be impartial. But he expressed strong disapproval of Colar’s invocation of “oppression, discrimination against Muslims and Africans, and police corruption all across the nation” as a defense to the charges. And he suggested that this factored into his ability to evaluate the evidence. “I’ve actually been discriminated against and I’ve actually had these issues,” Juror 48 said. “It just pisses me off that that’s being used as a scapegoat in an instance like this.” He added: “Literally the only things that [Colar] said were, were just those three things. Like, there was no substance.”

    The defendant asks the judge to remove this alternate, but the judge refuses to do so. “I hear what [Colar] is saying about [Juror 48].… But—and he’s coming back Monday. I’ll tell you that much.… I’ll give it some consideration, and if I need to think about it further on Monday, I can.”

  • The next day, it turns out that one of the non-alternate jurors got into a car crash, so the alternate juror in question now will be on the jury if he isn't excused. However, on a second colloquy with the judge, the juror says he has changed his mind and can be impartial.

    During the discussion, the court told Juror 48 that he was “now part of the jury” and asked him about the views he expressed on Friday. The juror said: “I let my emotions get the best of me on that one,” and described how Colar’s statements at voir dire “just brought up a lot of the bad issues that had happened in the past. So that little trauma from back then kind of came from nowhere.” He asserted that “over the past few days, I remembered exactly, like, there was a report I got afterwards, and I’m completely, like, past all that.” He added: “It was a little scratch in the back of my head that really bothered me at first. But, again, given a few days, I’m perfectly over it now. I’m fine.” The court asked him if he had any concerns about his ability to be fair and impartial, follow instructions, and evaluate the evidence. The juror replied, “No, I don’t.”

    Colar then spoke to Juror 48. He said, “[Juror 48], I believe that you should be excused, and the reason why is because you did state your bias.… What’s making you change your mind now?” Juror 48 responded, “When you were speaking during the jury selection, it had brought up some past traumas.… I have overcome those things in the past with the support of my friends and my family. I just had to remember that over the weekend….” He continued, “I promise, I am not going to be biased,” and “I was able to calm my head back down.” When Colar pressed him on what specifically triggered the reaction, the juror reiterated that “it’s the fact that the entire thing, the entire time you were talking,… all I was hearing from you was that there was discrimination, that they were against people of the Islamic faith, things like that, and that kind of just got stuck in my head.”

    The defendant again asks the judge to remove the juror, but the judge again refuses to do so.

    The district court asked no further questions and found Juror 48 fit to serve. Colar maintained his objection, stating, “I don’t believe that he can put that aside.… If something else comes up that I say and it re-triggers [him],… I don’t think he can put it to the side.” The court replied: “It’s… the position that… one would obviously take in your shoes and I understand it, and it is preserved for the record on appeal.”

  • The defendant is convicted on all charges, and appeals. The appeals panel reverses and remands.

    A juror’s initial expression of bias can be overcome if, upon further inquiry, he unequivocally commits to setting it aside and deciding the case based on the evidence presented. Juror 48 eventually told the court that he was “perfectly over” his earlier reaction and had no concern about his ability to be impartial. Still, for two reasons, the district court abused its discretion in finding Juror 48 fit to serve and failing to excuse him for cause under an actual bias theory.

    First, a juror’s assurances must be measured against the whole record, with any remaining doubts resolved against the juror. Juror 48 attributed his change of heart to having “time to calm down” and remembering how to “overcome it.” That described a shift in his current emotional state, not a reassessment of the conclusions that he had drawn. The court did not ask whether he still believed that there was “a thing” or that the defense theory lacked merit, the very views that made Juror 48’s statements so serious. A bare promise by Juror 48 that he was “not going to be biased” did not, in context, unequivocally assure his impartiality.

    Second, Juror 48’s bias was tied to a defense theory that would recur. As the government admits, racial and religious targeting was “a theme of Colar’s defense” throughout his trial. That theme triggered Juror 48’s prejudicial reaction. In his continuing objection, Colar raised the concern that “if something else comes up that I say and it re-triggers… his emotions, [] I don’t think he can put it to the side.” Yet the court never asked Juror 48 that critical question: whether hearing the defense theory throughout the remaining weeks of trial would retrigger his emotions and impair his ability to serve impartially.

    The district court abused its discretion by failing to promptly investigate Juror 48, deferring inquiry until a seat opened, and conducting an inadequate colloquy after the juror had heard evidence. The record as a whole was unclear as to whether Juror 48 unequivocally committed to setting aside his bias, and this doubt should have been resolved against him. The court’s failure to excuse him was an abuse of discretion. These errors ultimately deprived Colar of his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. We vacate Colar’s convictions and reverse and remand for a new trial.

If you think it's relevant, the judge in question is black and was nominated by Obama.

Selection/sampling bias in juries is a real concern that the judiciary seems to be backing itself into discovering, if slowly. There was at least one SCOTUS case peripherally on the issue this last term.

The last time I was in voir dire, I was asked if I could be impartial regarding sexual offenses involving minors. At least a few jurors indicated that they didn't think they could be, and would, I assume, want to throw the book at them. I'm not convinced "if they're guilty, throw the book at them" (not far from my personal opinion) isn't impartial, and I said (IMHO truthfully) that I could be.

In this case, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the trial judge: removing all the jurors that think a pro se defendant like this is crazy is not unlikely to select an equally crazy jury and get a crazy outcome. Also I'd question whether this is a reasonable example of a "right-wing defendant" for the original proposition.

"if they're guilty, throw the book at them"

Isn’t that the judge's job to decide, anyway? I know juries can sometimes recommend, but it's ultimately the jury that decides guilt, and the judge that decides the sentence.

I believe it varies by jurisdiction in the USA. Eg recently, in the Texas murder case of Karmelo Anthony, the jury first decided the guilt and then the same jury spent more time deliberating to decide the exact sentence. From the reporting about the case I read, this was binding, not merely a recommendation.

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