Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team is seeking relief from her conviction based on juror misconduct. A juror who sat on her trial failed to reveal they were a victim of sexual abuse. This could be very serious.
Voir dire is the process used by the parties in a trial to select a fair and impartial jury. Voir dire is the Latin for “truth say,” or tell the truth. A potential juror is questioned at length by both the state attorney and the defense counsel before they are allowed to sit on a jury panel.
A potential juror literally must tell the truth about their past, religious beliefs, political beliefs, and almost anything either party asks. This is the best method to determine whether a juror can be impartial when called on to decide the outcome of a trial. If a juror lies or withholds information, it can render the entire trial unconstitutional.
Imagine a member of a jury hearing a robbery case is a store owner. Imagine the store owner hides the fact his store was recently robbed and that he is angry the perpetrators are still on the run. Can he be trusted to judge the accused fairly? Probably not.
Now imagine a potential juror is the victim/survivor of a more intimate violation: sexual abuse. This juror’s personal experience, as terrible as it is, may motivate them to find a defendant guilty of a sex crime no matter the facts of the case.
The top line: no matter how some may wish to justify this type of rough justice, it must be avoided at all costs. The right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury is a central pillar of our judicial system. Jury selection is probably the most crucial part of the process.
It is fair to say we all are products of the lives we have lived. Our decisions today are built on the experiences of our pasts. A juror is supposed to use their experiences as a prism to view the information provided during a trial — not as a blinder preventing them from seeing beyond their own bias.
To put it briefly, jury selection is meant to be like a poker game where all the potential jurors show their cards during the hand. This way, the prosecutors and the defense can decide if they want to bet.
Now Ghislaine Maxwell believes a juror hid a card, and she wants to deal again. She should be able to do so. No matter how you feel about Maxwell, if you support a fair judicial system, you should want a re-deal too.
Robert Lefleur works as a prison consultant.
