Samuel Alito

“ In Tanner, 483 U.S. at 120-21, the Court added:
Allegation of juror misconduct, incompetency, or inattentiveness, raised for the first time days, weeks, or months after the verdict, seriously disrupt the finality of process. . . . Moreover, full and frank discussion in the jury room, jurors' willingness to return an unpopular verdict, and the community's trust in a system that relies on the decisions of laypeople would all be undermined by a barrage of postverdict scrutiny of juror conduct. ”

“ Williams, who is serving a term of life imprisonment in Pennsylvania for first-degree murder, argues that his right to an impartial jury was abridged because the state courts refused in post-trial proceedings to admit certain evidence of racial bias on the part of members of the jury. ”

“ Richards, 43 V.I. 337, 241 F.3d 335 (3d Cir. 2001) , embraced the principle that the "no impeachment" rule does not apply when evidence is offered to prove juror misconduct. In Richards, the defendant moved for a new trial on the ground that the jury foreman was a friend of the government's witness and that the juror had failed to describe their relationship honestly during voir dire. ”

“ At the beginning of the hearing, the judge stated that "a juror may not impeach his or her own verdict" but that there is "a narrow exception . . . allowing post-trial testimony of extraneous influences which might have affected the jury during their deliberation." App. 46a-47a. Montgomery, the other jurors, and a reporter for a local newspaper who had overheard a conversation among the jurors then testified. This testimony revealed that, after the guilt-phase verdict but before the penalty-phase verdict, half of the jurors had heard that Ronald Williams was wanted on other murder charges. ”

“ After all, important voir dire questions typically focus on matters that may well affect juror's decision-making processes and, therefore, allowing a juror to testify for the purpose of showing that another juror lied during voir dire may not be viewed as much different from permitting an inquiry into the decision-making process itself. ”

“ IV. A. With this background in mind, we turn first to the affidavit of Jewel Hayes. As noted, Hayes stated in her affidavit that she had encountered a juror in the lobby of the courthouse after the trial had ended and that the juror had stated that " 'all niggers do is cause trouble' " and that Hayes "should go back [to] where [she] came from." Hayes was not a juror, and although the habeas respondent (hereinafter "the Commonwealth") suggests that Hayes's evidence concerned the "internal workings" of the jury, Appellee's Br. at 18, this is plainly not correct. ”

“ The defendant was tried in state court for murder and other crimes stemming from a prison escape, and during voir dire potential jurors were asked whether they had any experiences with violent crime. Rushen, 464 U.S. at 115. Juror Patricia Fagan answered that she had not, but during the trial there was testimony about an informant named Pratt, and Fagan then recalled for the first time that several years earlier Pratt had been convicted of killing a woman who had been one of Fagan's childhood friends. ”

“ The driver of the fleeing car threw various objects out the window, striking the police car with one of them, and succeeded in eluding the officer, but the car overturned on an embankment. Police discovered it abandoned. Retracing the route of the car chase, police recovered a Mac-10 firearm, a silencer, and an ammunition cartridge, and the police matched the gun forensically to the object that had struck the police cruiser. ”