Opinion
Case No. 1:03cv053.
August 24, 2004
DECISION AND ENTRY ADOPTING DECISION AND ORDER OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE (DOC. #26) DENYING PETITIONER'S MOTION FOR DISCOVERY (DOC. #18)
Based upon the reasoning and citations of authority set forth by the United States Magistrate Judge in his Decision and Order (Doc. #26) denying Petitioner's Motion for Discovery (Doc. #18), as well as upon a thorough consideration of the applicable law, this Court adopts and affirms said Decision and Order of the Magistrate Judge.
Petitioner seeks deposition discovery of all jurors deliberating in the trial of the Petitioner, including the alternates who were in the jury room but who were not called upon to participate in either the deliberations or the decision. Rather than reinventing a wheel more than adequately designed by the Magistrate Judge, this Court concludes, the issue of procedural default aside, that the depositions sought by the Petitioner could not lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. No matter how the Petitioner wishes to characterize his intentions in seeking the discovery at issue, asking the jurors how they would have reacted to certain evidence which they did not hear (whether that evidence is real or hypothetical), would require those jurors to testify in a manner that would, indeed, reveal the course of the jurors' deliberations and/or the effect of anything, heard or unheard, upon their or any other juror's mind or emotions which led to the verdict rendered. Such testimony would run afoul of Fed.R.Evid. 606(b). To frame this point in another fashion, by asking the jurors to evaluate the weight of evidence which counsel failed to present, the juror must reflect upon and testify to the actual deliberations had and the verdict returned.
WHEREFORE, based upon the aforesaid, this Court adopts/affirms the Decision and Order of the United States Magistrate Judge denying Petitioner's Motion for Discovery.