Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)

Citation: Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)
Parent Document: Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2018-05-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4502306/heriberto-rodriguez-v-county-of... ↗

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Finally, appellants contend that S.M. was not candid
during voir dire. We held in Dyer, 151 F.3d at 982, that a
juror’s dishonesty supported an inference of bias, but the facts
in Dyer were radically different from the facts here. In Dyer,
the juror in question failed to mention that her brother was
murdered in the same manner that the defendant was accused
of murdering the victim. Further, the juror lied by claiming
that she thought her brother’s death was an accident and by
stating that she did not testify at the trial of her brother’s
killer. Id. at 982. Here, by contrast, there is no evidence that
S.M. was dishonest about anything. During his initial voir
dire, S.M. failed to mention his father’s ACLU connection,
but the next day, on his own initiative, he notified the court of
the omission. The district court did not err in finding that this
initial omission was not evidence of dishonesty that would
support a finding of implied bias. Further, the late disclosure
did not deprive appellants of the opportunity to exercise a
peremptory challenge, for they had used all of their
peremptory challenges before S.M.’s initial voir dire began. G. Punitive Damages

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