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Unredacted Filings Reveal Claims of Juror Misconduct in Apple vs Samsung Trial
zaphod777 writes with this bit from Groklaw on more Jury related intrigue in the Apple-Samsung trial: "Samsung has now filed an unredacted version [PDF] of its motion for judgment as a matter of law, a new trial, and/or remittitur. That's the one that was originally filed with a redacted section we figured out was about the foreman, Velvin Hogan. The judge ordered it filed unsealed, and so now we get to read all about it. It's pretty shocking to see the full story. I understand now why Samsung tried to seal it. They call Mr. Hogan untruthful in voir dire (and I gather in media interviews too), accuse him of 'implied bias' and of tainting the process by introducing extraneous 'evidence' of his own during jury deliberations, all of which calls, Samsung writes, for an evidentiary hearing and a new trial with an unbiased jury as the cure."
It would seem that everyone's favorite foreman did not disclose that he was sued by Seagate for breach of contract, and that he may have had a chip on his shoulder considering that Samsung is the largest single shareholder of Seagate.
I think for lying during selection Hogan should be charged with perjury and contempt of court.
The article says 10 years, but I'm not sure where that comes from.
The Samsung filing states he was asked “you or a family member or someone very close to you [has] ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?"
i.e. no time qualifier
He was asked if he was involved in any lawsuits within the last ten years, which he answered. The lawsuit with Seagate occurred in 1993 which is beyond ten years ago. Thus, he did not disclose it because it wasn't asked of him. But let's pretend he attempted to deceive the system in order to screw over Samsung because that sounds better, right?
(emphasis mine)
Where do you get "within the last ten years", it is not in the summary, the article, or the unredacted filing, which says:
“you or a family member or someone very close to you [has] ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?” (Reporter’s Transcript (“RT”) 148:18-21), he disclosed one such lawsuit but failed to disclose two others, including one in which he was sued by his former employer, Seagate, for breach of contract after he failed to repay a promissory note (RT 148:22-150:12; Seagate Tech., Inc. v. Hogan, Case No. MS-93-0919 (Santa Cruz Mun. Ct. June 30, 1993), Declaration of Susan Estrich (“Estrich Decl.”) Ex. A), and filed for personal bankruptcy six months later (In re Velvin R. Hogan and Carol K. Hogan, Case No. 93-58291-MM (Bankr. N.D. Cal. Dec. 27, 1993); Estrich Decl., Ex. B).
I've been on a jury, and you'd be amazed at how easy it is for the entire jury to fall in line behind someone who seems to know what he's talking about, especially if the trial involves something few people have experience in (such as patent law). If the rest of the jury trusted him as the resident expert on the issue at hand, they would likely go along with whatever he said.
pshaw. Primary sources? Yeah, right I'll accept that when I'm dead. Get back to me when you've got a Wikipedia article or, preferably, a tweet.
The problem with that is that according to the transcript he was asked a question over and above the "court instructions". The court instructions refer to a form that potential jurors are asked to fill out. The transcript refers to a direct question asked during voir dire. While it is possible that he legitimately believed that the court instructions applied to the question, that does not change the fact that he failed to answer the question as asked. It is also possible he either misunderstood the court instructions or flat out lied about them and that no such instruction was ever issued.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
What is this man doing here???
It's marked troll because it's incorrect. Groklaw has the transcripts, he was asked if he was ever involved in any such lawsuits with no time constraints. 10 years was never mentioned or asked
People always whine about how courts seem to not want people with expertise in an area, and this is the reason. The jury is meant to be the judge of fact, not the judge of law (the judge is the judge of law). So the idea is they are given a set of evidence, and told what the law is and how to apply it, and then, in that context only, they are to decide what the facts show. They aren't to use outside information, they aren't to use their own supposed understanding. They consider the evidence presented and the law as instructed.
The whole idea is so you don't have an armchair lawyer with a hazy understanding of the law making bad decisions. You don't want someone who says "I'm an expert on this, listen to me," and turns out to be wrong, or motivated by something else.
The jury is not supposed to be an investigative force or anything. They are just supposed to judge the facts they are given in the context of the law they are instructed. Hence while you don't want people who are "stupid" in terms of low IQ, you do want people who do not have a background in the case. You want people who will consider things with an open mind, not come in assuming they know how things should go already.
It was a yes or no question. He answered yes.
No, he did not answer "yes." This is from the transcript of the voir dire:
See what he did there? Instead of saying "yes," he answered as if that were the only case. By omitting the other two cases he was involved in, he effectively misrepresented that this was the only case. I'm sorry, but it is extremely foreseeable that being sued by Seagate is a material fact that should have been disclosed. He also lied later in this exchange:
He said months ago that his own experiences relating to patents helped him decide how he should rule, and then he proceeded to "help" other jurors understand based on that information--NOT the judge's instruction. And his statements since have indicated that he was going out of his way to be on this jury so that he could be a part of this big case.
It all looks pretty straight-forward to me. The guy borrowed $25,000 from Seagate in 1991, didn't pay it back, got sued, declared bankruptcy to dodge his financial obligation, and apparently still is buttsore about it. In 2012, he had an ax to grind against Seagate, he hid relevant information to get on the jury so that he could grind it, and then he proceeded to trash Samsung--the currently majority owners of Seagate--to get back at them. And now he's going out to the press and lying about the questions and instructions to not look like the tool he is.
I hope they nail his ass to the wall for juror misconduct and that Samsung gets an actual fair and impartial trial out of it.
Trolly troll troll. He ignored prior art because of a notion he invented himself that prior art has to be "interchangeable". He influenced the jury to disregard prior art against Apple's patents because the prior art didn't run on iOS. That he was biased against Samsung is pretty obvious from the fact that he didn't also apply this (completely wrong) notion of "interchangeability" to Samsung's supposedly infringing software. If it has to run on iOS to be prior art, why doesn't it have to run on iOS to be infringing?