In United States v. Nieves, No. 21-1901-cr (2d Cir. Jan. 26, 2023), the defendant appealed the district court’s judgment sentencing him to 36 months in prison following his conviction by a jury of witness retaliation. The defendant challenged how the district court conducted jury selection, arguing primarily that the district court neglected to adequately screen prospective jurors for bias against gang members and that the voir dire process was too abbreviated to allow for informed peremptory and for-cause challenges.
The Second Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded for a new trial. The court explained that, under these circumstances, the district court exceeded its discretion by failing to sufficiently account for the risk of gang-related bias among prospective jurors. The Court explained that the district court’s failure on voir dire to explore or to take other steps specifically to counter such potential prejudice unfairly deprived the defendant of the opportunity to unearth a pervasive bias relevant to an issue pivotal to the government’s case against him. The Second Circuit found that District Judge Rakoff’s self-described “long standing practice” of an extremely abbreviated voir dire process failed to protect against a significant “risk of juror prejudice arising from bias.” Given the risk of juror bias based on defendant Nieves’ alleged gang association, “it was outside of the [district] court’s discretion to altogether decline to protect against that risk.”
The Second Circuit made its disapproval of this abbreviated voir dire practice clear, remarking, “[I]t is difficult for us, sitting in review, to imagine what less [the district court] could have done to guard against potential bias.” Accordingly, the court held that the district court abused its discretion.