JURY - FALSE OR MISLEADING ANSWERS ON VOIR DIRE AS GROUNDS FOR A NEW TRIAL

Authors

James H. Kilbourne, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Defendant, a striking employee, was convicted of breach of the peace arising out of an assault on non-striking employees. Immediately preceding his trial the jurors had been interrogated on voir dire in a similar case. Counsel for defendant stated he would rely in part on that examination. In it the jurors had been asked whether they had either friends or relatives working at the strike-bound plant. Juror A failed to disclose that his brother was a non-striking employee, though he admitted his niece was. Juror B failed to disclose that a friend who had previously lived with him for a long period of time was also a non-striking employee, who had been assaulted by strikers, or so the juror had heard. On motion for new trial, the trial court found that neither intentionally concealed the facts and that each was an honest juror. The motion was therefore denied, and defendant appealed. Held, in making such findings there was no abuse of discretion to warrant a new trial. State v. Kokoska, 123 Conn. 161, 193 A. 210 (1937).

Recommended Citation

James H. Kilbourne, JURY - FALSE OR MISLEADING ANSWERS ON VOIR DIRE AS GROUNDS FOR A NEW TRIAL, 36 Mich. L. Rev. 1020 (1938).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol36/iss6/18