no prejudice resulted from a brief conversation between the prosecutor and two jurors, outside the jury room, before deliberations, concerning the estimated conclusion of trial
How later courts described this case
- no prejudice resulted from a brief conversation between the prosecutor and two jurors, outside the jury room, before deliberations, concerning the estimated conclusion of trial
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Black, J.
(dissenting). I agree fully with Justice Souris except in this:
Our “strictures” against the fact or even the appearance of tampering with jurors by officers of court — all officers of court that is — are the same whether the case being tried is civil or criminal in nature. I mean to keep on repeating that the constitutional assurance of due process of law, originating as it did with the Magna Oarta, was intended from the beginning to apply with equal force to the taking or attempted taking of life, liberty, or property.
This opinion of separate concurrence is recorded only to guard the writer’s signature from future allegation that People v. Schram is precedent for the proposition that an officer of court may safely jury-tamper or appear to jury-tamper to some greater degree in a civil case than in a criminal case. People v. Schram is not with my vote to become authority for saying that the constitutional warrant of due process isn’t quite as strong when one’s property distinguished from his personal liberty is threatened. Deprivation of the one can hurt as much or more than deprivation of the other.