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Hearings On Jury Bias Or Misconduct, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In the recent cases of Smith v. Phillips, and Rushen v. Spain, the United States Supreme Court recognized that judicial review of ex parte contacts with a sitting jury may raise a number of separate but interrelated constitutional rights: (1) the right to an impartial jury; (2) the right to a due process post-trial hearing on jury bias; (3) a possible due process right to a mid-trial hearing on jury bias; (4) the defendant's right to be present at such mid· trial hearings; and (5) the right to be represented at such mid-trial hearings. As Justice Stevens noted in his …