The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in affirming the seating of two jurors addressed the difference between juror belief and bias. In Griffin v. Bell, 694 F.3d 817 (7th Cir. 2012) one of the issues for the jury to decide was whether the teenage plaintiff or a police officer was telling the truth. During voir dire one juror, Tracey Carel, testified that if the police officer said one thing and the plaintiff said another she would most likely believe the police officer. The reviewing court referring to other testimony noted that she said that if she was convinced by the evidence that the police officer was wrong and caused injuries, she could award damages to the plaintiff.
The other juror, Nadine Maamari testified that she probably would give more weight to what the police officer said because he was just doing his job and he must have had a reason for whatever he did. To determine who was telling the truth she would start out by thinking to herself well the police officer must have had a reason to do whatever he did, he just didn’t beat this kid up for no reason.
In refusing the challenges for cause the reviewing trial court said that he had asked all of the jurors if they could keep an open mind, listen to all of the evidence and the court’s instruction before making up your mind as to what the verdict should be, and they all said yes.
In holding that the trial court did not abuse it’s discretion in refusing the challenges for cause the court pointed out “everyone brings to a case a set of beliefs that may incline him in one direction or another. The person told that X had been indicted and asked whether he thought X guilty, might reply that he thought X probably was guilty because few innocent people are indicted. That would be a prior (belief) it would be a bias only if it were irrational or unshakeable so that the prospective juror ‘would be unable to faithfully and impartially imply the law (citation omitted)’ would be, in other words ‘adamant’ (citation omitted) – If, for example, the person added ‘nothing will ever convince me that the government should indict an innocent person.'” (P. 824)
The court also noted that when a prospective juror fails to express herself carefully or consistently, the trial judge is best suited to determine competency to serve impartially.