El Chapo’s Tainted Jury

No rights claimed to the photo. Source: Washington Post

“You know how we were told we can't look at the media during the trial? Well, we did.”

Today, Vice News published a story in which a purported El Chapo juror claimed that several members of the jury repeatedly accessed media stories about the trial.  Not only is it brazen for a member of an anonymous jury to contact the media, but the contents of the interview could have major implications.  The fairness of the trial, now in question, may result in a mistrial.

The El Chapo trial played out in Federal Court in the Eastern District of New York.  Out of extreme caution for the safety of the jurors, the court attempted to hide their identities throughout the trial.  The U.S. Marshals Service took unique security precautions, including personally transporting the jurors at times during the trial.  According to the Vice Article, the jurors were scared to share with each other any personal information for fear of reprisal.  The prosecution presented an extensive case against El Chapo, calling 58 witnesses to the stand.  In the article, the juror claims that the jury improperly accessed the media despite explicit instructions from the judge not to do so.  The juror claimed that at least 5 of the jurors had read social media and news articles about allegations that El Chapo had drugged and raped young girls.  When confronted by the judge, the jury allegedly denied any outside research.  The guilty verdict, obtained after months of court proceedings and millions of dollars, is now in question.

The revelations from the unnamed juror touch upon constitutional rights, among them:  

(1) Due Process Concerns

(2) 6^th Amendment Concerns

Talking with my roommate about today’s news I am reminded that not everyone is plagued with a legal education.  When I told him that several members of the El Chapo jury allegedly read information about the case on Twitter, his response was “so what.” The United States legal system is based on the basic premise of fairness.  The Sixth Amendment explicitly guarantees a criminal defendant “an impartial jury” and an opportunity “to be confronted by the witness against him” among other things.  The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”  The fact that the jury sought out information outside the confines of the courtroom has the potential to deprive El Chapo of his constitutional rights as a criminal defendant.  For one, evidence in criminal trials is carefully filtered by the judge and attorneys according to the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE).  By in large, the FRE seeks to preserve the reliability of evidence and prevent overly prejudicial evidence from consideration.  A good example of this were the allegations regarding El Chapo’s alleged drugging and raping of young girls.  The judge, at the request of the attorneys, excluded the evidence from the trial.  But according to the Vice article, several jurors read about the allegations disobeying direct instructions from the judge.  Even so, a mistrial is far from guaranteed.

Thaddeus Hoffmeister, University of Dayton law professor, explained in an article by the Associated Press that the defense attorneys will have to (1) prove that the misconduct occurred and that it had a prejudicial effect, and then the judge must determine (2) to what extent it influenced the jury’s decision making.  Despite being the infamous leader of one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, El Chapo is still entitled to the same rights as any other criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system.  The strength and fairness of the US legal system was the primary reason the El Chapo was tried in the United States instead of Mexico.

Preston W. Rose (Connect with me on Linkedin)