Smith v. Phillips

Supreme Court of United States
455 U.S. 209 (1982)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Allegations of juror partiality do not automatically require a new trial; the proper remedy is a post-trial hearing where the defendant has the opportunity to prove actual bias.

Facts:

During respondent Phillips's New York state murder trial, a juror, John Dana Smith, submitted an application for a job as a major felony investigator with the District Attorney's Office.
Smith had a friend with contacts in the office deliver the application.
During a follow-up conversation, the friend informed an attorney in the District Attorney's office that Smith was a juror in Phillips's ongoing trial.
This information was relayed to the two attorneys prosecuting Phillips's case more than a week before the trial ended.
The prosecuting attorneys conferred and decided not to inform the trial judge or defense counsel of Smith's job application.
The jury, with Smith as a member, returned a guilty verdict against Phillips.
After the verdict, the District Attorney learned of the application and informed the court and defense counsel.

Procedural Posture:

Respondent Phillips was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in a New York state trial court.
Phillips filed a post-trial motion to vacate the conviction, which the trial court denied after a hearing where it found the juror was not actually biased.
The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, an intermediate appellate court, affirmed the conviction.
The New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, denied leave to appeal.
Phillips filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The District Court granted the writ, finding that bias should be imputed to the juror.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the granting of the writ, holding that the prosecutors' failure to disclose the juror's application denied Phillips due process.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals.

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Issue:

Does a juror's application for employment with the prosecutor's office during a criminal trial, and the prosecutor's subsequent failure to disclose that application, constitute a denial of due process that requires a new trial without a specific finding of actual juror bias?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Rehnquist

No. A juror's potentially compromising situation does not automatically violate due process or require a new trial without proof of actual bias. Due process guarantees a fair trial with an impartial jury, and the appropriate remedy for allegations of juror partiality is a hearing where the defendant has the opportunity to prove the juror was actually biased. The state trial court conducted such a hearing and found no evidence of actual bias, a factual finding entitled to a presumption of correctness in federal habeas proceedings. Furthermore, prosecutorial misconduct, such as the failure to disclose information, violates due process only if it renders the trial unfair, which did not happen here because the juror was not actually biased.

Dissenting - Justice Marshall

Yes. The juror's active pursuit of employment with the prosecutor's office created such a high probability of conscious or unconscious bias that it should be deemed 'implied bias' as a matter of law, requiring automatic disqualification. A post-trial hearing is an inadequate safeguard because a juror is unlikely to admit to bias due to human self-justification and potential criminal sanctions. The prosecutor’s failure to disclose the information was improper and prejudiced the respondent by denying him the opportunity to have the compromised juror replaced with an alternate during the trial, which would have eliminated the threat to his right to an impartial jury.

Concurring - Justice O'Connor

No. While the majority correctly holds that a post-conviction hearing is adequate in this instance, the Court's opinion should not be read to foreclose the doctrine of 'implied bias' in all circumstances. In certain extreme situations, such as a juror being an actual employee of the prosecuting agency or a close relative of a participant, a hearing may be inadequate to uncover bias. In such exceptional cases, a finding of implied bias would be justified to preserve the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, and a verdict should not be allowed to stand.

Analysis:

This decision significantly reinforces the legal standard that juror bias must be proven as a matter of fact, rather than being presumed or implied from compromising circumstances. It establishes the Remmer hearing—an evidentiary hearing to prove actual bias—as the default constitutional remedy, placing a high burden on defendants. The ruling also limits the grounds for finding a due process violation based on prosecutorial misconduct, tying the violation not to the prosecutor's culpability but to the resulting prejudice and fairness of the trial itself. This gives substantial deference to state court factual findings on bias, making it more difficult to overturn state convictions on such grounds in federal habeas corpus proceedings.

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