A Federal Case on Juries
A major aspect of the Bill of Rights involves a person's right to be tried before a jury, and this forms a critical part of justice systems. A jury trial for any offense that attracts a punishment of six-month imprisonment or more is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment for anybody but such trial is not provided to cases involving juvenile delinquency for minors (Joseph, 2017). The jury has an important role of checking the unregulated powers of the prosecutors who wield much if it when making a decision about whether to bring criminal charges on a defendant. It is important to study the role of a jury, especially in relation to access to evidence presented by the prosecutor such as films, tapes, and transcript at the time of deliberations (Joseph, 2017). This also involves the provision non-testimonial films exhibit that has been presented as evidence to the jury.
Seventh Circuit in United States v. Loughry F.3d
Facts
The case involved Roger Loughry, the defendant, who had been prosecuted for offenses related to child pornography. In 2008, the federal police officers carried out a search warrant on the defendant’s home and this resulted to the seizure of compact discs and a computer, and both contained videos and images that related to child pornographic materials. The defendant’s computers was found to have bookmarks that allowed a person to fast access Cache , by then a website that uploaded child pornographic materials. Ultimately, the defendant was indicted on various charges relating to advertisement of child pornographic materials, distribution of such materials and a conspiracy to distribute them. The jury indicted him on all the accounts at the initial trial. Following an appeal, the conviction was vacated by the Seventh Circuit. Also, the case was remanded for another trial on the argument that the videos introduced at the trial were prejudicial. The jurors had been provided with a red binder that had images of child pornography from the computer cache and other related white binders and this formed the basis of convicting the defendant (Federal Evidence Review, 2013).
The defendant appeal
The defendant appealed for the case and claimed that the trial court was wrong by accepting that the red binder with child pornography to be seized from his home and then provided to the jury at the time of deliberations. The defendant claims were based on the notion that there was "a great danger of prejudice" (Federal Evidence Review, 2013). In addition, he cited the evidence was inflammatory in nature and was prone to abuse and misuse when sent back to the jury. Therefore, Loughry's only challenge was the decision made by the district court to send evidence to the jury. He argued that the court had violated it discretions when it presented the jurors with the images and the depictions of young girls' in sexually explicit engagement was likely to inflame emotions of the jurors and then prevent them from assessing his guilt in a rational way (Federal Evidence Review, 2013).
Seventh Circuit decision
The court of appeal recognized that jurors are normally entitled to view any exhibits that the prosecutors properly admitted as evidence. The court cited previous cases where the district court was found to have violated its discretion by declining to send exhibits that had properly been admitted to the jury at the time of deliberations as had been requested by the plaintiff. However, the court did not need to always give the jury with any exhibit obtained as evidence and that in some circumstances; the district court may enforce its discretionary authority over the jurors to put leave out even an exhibit that had properly been admitted (Federal Evidence Review, 2013). The Court of Appeal held that even if the defendant's points were valid in relation to the impact of child pornography from home, there was no violation of discretion in permitting the materials to be provided to the jury as evidence. The evidence produced was of highly probative nature and thus, it was found that the district court had remained within its discretion. The appeal Court concluded that any existing prejudice risk to the defendant did not warrant the evidence to be excluded from the jury room. In fact, the Seventh Circuit recognized that the claim put across did not involve admissibility of the images containing child pornography, but providing it to the jury room (Federal Evidence Review, 2013).
Analysis
The case is important since it addresses the issue of providing films or tapes to the Jury while the case is being deliberated upon. The question involves whether a jury should be allowed to view, touch or even manipulate a give demonstrative inside a jury room. It also highlights the important factors that should be considered by a trial court while making decisions in case some evidence is not presented to the jury while deliberating on a case. The decision should be made on the basis of the line drawn between exhibits of non-testimonial evidence and the testimonial evidence. In essence, exhibits considered to be testimonial should be presented to the jurors, regardless of whether they have been a presented as evidence so as to prevent the case of unnecessary emphasis while disregarding the oral testimony.
References
Joseph, G. P. (2017). Modern visual evidence. Law Journal Press. 6-44
Federal Evidence Review, (2013).On providing the Jury Access to the Exhibits Admitted At Trial. In the United States Court of Appeals. Retrieved from: http://federalevidence.com/pdf/2013/12Dec/US.v.Loughry.pdf
