CRIMINAL LITIGATION

The general rule is that evidence of the jury’s deliberations is inadmissible, and that has to  extend to evidence not only of the jury’s discussions but also to evidence of how and why a particular juror reached their verdict.

However, in the present case, evidence that the juror in question was a civilian police employee and of the extent of her knowledge of the officers in the case was admissible. The fact that the juror knew the  officers in the case reasonably well and had worked with them was enough to satisfy the bias test as regards her.

There was a real possibility that she would have been influenced by those factors in reaching her verdict, and there was no doubt that the fair-minded informed observed would have concluded that there was a real possibility that the biased juror had influenced her fellow jurors. The risk of contamination could not safely be excluded.