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Samsung Accuses Foreman Hogan of Misrepresentation
sfcrazy writes "Samsung is clearly accusing Hogan in its recent filing of influencing the jury in favor of Apple. Samsung said in its filing: 'Mr. Hogan's own statements to the media suffice if such a showing is required. Once inside the jury room, Mr. Hogan acted as a "de facto technical expert" who touted his high-tech experience to bring the divided jury together. Contrary to this Court's instructions, he told other jurors incorrectly that an accused device infringes a utility patent unless it is "entirely different"; that a prior art reference could not be invalidating unless that reference was "interchangeable"; and that invalidating prior art must be currently in use. He thus failed "to listen to the evidence, not to consider extrinsic facts, [and] to follow the judge's instructions."'"
They also allege that Hogan has an old grunge against Samsung because they own part of Seagate (which had sued him into bankruptcy 20 years ago) and that he's a patent-owner himself (and very pro-patent)--neither fact he disclosed during the jury selection process.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Duh, he couldn't even get out of Jury duty.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Some of the statements he made after the trial, he seemed to be enjoying the limelight until he realised what a hole he was digging and seemed to shut up. I was mind-blown.
He actually seemed proud, of the fact that he was able to convince the other jurors that they could ignore the "prior art" arguments because they were "bogging us down".
He stated very matter of factly, that the trial was over from day one when Apple presented their "smoking gun" which, in fact, turned out to be quite the opposite to anybody who actually READS the thing now that the unredacted documents are available, and didn't just look at Apple's cherry-picking and assumption leaping.
He ignored the judge's instructions as to how to calculate the award amount (and seemed quite proud of the 'punishment' he awarded (paraphrasing because I can't be bothered to look it up): "I approached it by thinking, what if these were MY patents", and "so we made an appropriately painful award").
The award amount itself was sent back to the jury room how many times, because they couldn't do simple arithmetic (and such was their hurry to get out of there, they awarded a few tens of millions even for things they said DIDN'T infringe).
The whole trial was a farce... Declaring mistrials is very uncommon but this travesty needs to be one of the exceptions.
it was Apple which probed Samsung's timing of their knowledge about Hogan's past.... a question which they themselves failed to answer when Samsung's lawyers filed a rebuttal. Very strange... looks like Apple could get hoisted by their own petard... and rightfully so!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Once inside the jury room, Mr. Hogan acted as a "de facto technical expert" who touted his high-tech experience to bring the divided jury together.
So, he talked out of his ass.
He must be a regular here on Slashdot! And he probably has karma out the Yin Yang to boot!
Samsung's Laywers only knew as much about the Jurors as the Jurors themselves disclosed. Any further investigation of the Jurors could be considered jury tampering. More importantly, the Jury's actions are only protected if they are taken within the law. If a juror's actions are illegal, they have no protection.
Now, in this case I don't think that the Foreman's actions were necessarily illegal, and as such I doubt he can be prosecuted or sued for them, but they do raise a number of questions about the propriety of the verdict and damage award. My guess is that there are two things that could result from this:
1) The verdict could be overturned and a new trial ordered. At this point, the jury is irrevocably tainted and replacing the foreman with an alternate and re-deliberating is just not an option.
2) The foreman may be held in contempt by the judge - I'm not sure what legal grounds the judge actually has to do this, but I know that if the case ends up having to be retried because of the foreman's actions, it will SERIOUSLY piss off the judge. And if there's one thing you DON'T want to do, it's piss off a judge in their own courtroom.
I suspect that the verdict will be overturned, as it's becoming clear that there are compelling arguments that the law was not followed, and thus allowing it to stand will weaken the judicial system as a whole. What would be interesting is if the judge decides somehow that Apple should have known that the foreman was tainted and withheld that information from the court, and as a result the judge decides to not only overturn the verdict, but reverse it and find in favor of Samsung. I doubt that would stand up to an appeal though, so I expect that won't happen, but you never know...
Or you could, you know, DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY and not try to get out of jury duty.
Tired of "idiots" on juries? Serve on one yourself.
I'm not a lawyer, but Groklaw answers a fair amount of this. I've also sat on a jury before, if that makes any difference.
1. This is one of the points being argued. The gist of Samsung's arguments is that there is a legal standard that believes that a prospective juror under oath is to be believed unless there is reason not to believe. The threshold for breaching a prospective juror's privacy is much higher than that for breaching an interested party's. Jury selection is long and complicated as it is. When a juror says, "I was involved in 1 lawsuit involving XYZ" and there is no apparent need for follow-up on other suits, lawyers typically won't follow up. There is trust that jurors will be forthcoming, because they took an oath that they would be forthcoming.
2. "Protected" is a complicated word. Basically, the Court issues instructions to the jury, and trusts that the jury will abide by those instructions. It requires an extraordinary level to prove that a jury acted outside the bounds of the Court's instructions. It's one thing if the jury's verdict doesn't jive with what the Court thinks it should be. It is another matter entirely when there is evidence of willful misconduct by a juror. Basically, if it can be demonstrated that a juror was willfully disregarding jury instructions or otherwise was acting as an "interested party", that juror could face sanction from the court, including the possibility of having to pay at least some of the costs. It essentially comes down to jury tampering. The bar for proving this is very high, but a juror's own words after the trial can be used against him or her.
3. This is also a complicated question. Lawyers want to win, yes, but they also have a fairly rigorous set of legal ethics to which they must adhere. This is a civil trial, so they are not under the same burden a criminal prosecutor is. Apple doesn't need to make Samsung's case for Samsung. At the same time, anything they plan to introduce at trial needs to pass through Samsung first so that Samsung may object or present a defense. Cases like this have very few "Aha!" moments. They have TONS of filings, briefs, depositions, cross-depositions and so forth. The court's job is to make sure the trial is fair and that both sides get their say. That said, if Apple had prior knowledge of juror bias, they did have a legal obligation to make the Court aware of this bias.
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Something cleverReading through Samsung's submission over at Groklaw, the whole juror misconduct is a rather minor part.
It goes on for pages about Apple's arguments during trial and disputes their claims, for example:
It goes on like this for pages and makes a very compelling argument.