A stealth juror or rogue juror is a person who, motivated by a hidden agenda in reference to a legal case, attempts to be seated on the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England du ...

and to influence the outcome. Legal scholars believe that lawyers can identify stealth jurors by paying close attention to non-verbal behavior connected with deception and identifying discrepancies between answers to oral ''

voir dire (; often ; from an Anglo-Norman phrase meaning "to speak the truth") is a legal phrase for a variety of procedures connected with jury trials. It originally referred to an oath taken by jurors to tell the truth ( la, verum dicere). This term is ...

'' and written questionnaires. A potential stealth juror may be hard to read and excessively reserved. The potential for stealth jurors to nullify death penalty statutes has prompted calls to eliminate the requirement of a unanimous verdict in jury trials. On the other hand, the argument has been raised that stealth jurors can serve as a defense against bad laws. Clay Conrad has stated that libertarian-minded

members can and should increase their odds of getting on a jury by telling the prosecutors what they want to hear, without actually lying. Jurors who lie to get on a jury can be charged with such offenses as contempt of court and

obstruction of justice Obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, is an act that involves unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other gov ...

Background check A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and oth ...

s are increasingly being used to catch jurors who lie about their

criminal records A criminal record, police record, or colloquially RAP sheet (Record of Arrests and Prosecutions) is a record of a person's criminal history. The information included in a criminal record and the existence of a criminal record varies between coun ...

Incidents

Three stealth jurors allegedly lied to get on the jury in the

Scott Peterson Scott Lee Peterson (born October 24, 1972) is an American convicted murderer. In 2004, he was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife, Laci, who was pregnant at the time, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner, in Mod ...

murder trial. Peterson's lawyers argued that " getting on a nationally famous case hese jurorsmay have aspirations of working their jury service into a book, interviews or some other form of celebrity and possible monetary benefit." The lawyers argued that Peterson would have a better chance of getting a fair trial outside of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, the entertainment capital of the world, since many of the jurors there might be publicity hungry. After the

Martha Stewart Martha Helen Stewart (, ; born August 3, 1941) is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing pu ...

trial, a juror who gave several media interviews after the conviction was accused by Stewart's lawyers of misconduct by lying to get on the jury. His statements to the media after the verdict proclaiming Stewart's conviction as a "victory for the little guy who loses money in the markets because of these types of transactions" were used by the lawyers for the defendants to argue that the verdict was tainted by this juror's alleged agenda to convict. In June 2008, after a judge dismissed a juror, during deliberations in a "gang murder" trial, who was found to have falsely denied her gang affiliation on a jury selection questionnaire,

San Mateo County San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City is the county seat, and the third most populated city following Daly ...

Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said: "It is our subjective opinion that she was a stealth juror, that she specifically wanted to be on this jury." Juror dishonesty on questionnaires threatened the six-month-long federal corruption trial of former Illinois Governor

George Ryan George Homer Ryan (born February 24, 1934) is an American former politician and member of the Republican Party who served as the 39th governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. Elected in 1998, Ryan received national attention for his 1999 mora ...

In popular culture

John Grisham John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Ame ...

's book ''

The Runaway Jury ''The Runaway Jury'' is a legal thriller novel written by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham's seventh novel. The hardcover first edition was published by Doubleday Books in 1996 (). Pearson Longman released the graded reader editi ...

'' is about a stealth juror who—having made very meticulous, year-long preparations—serves in a tobacco-related case and by a variety of tricks manages to get other members of the jury to vote the way he intended. The film based on it is about a stealth juror in a gun-related case.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Deception Juries