A juror was dismissed Monday after reporting that a woman dropped a bag of $120,000 in cash at her home and offered her more money if she would vote to acquit seven people charged with stealing more than $40 million from a program meant to feed children during the pandemic. “This is completely beyond the pale,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in court on Monday. During the trial that began in April, defense attorneys questioned the quality of the FBI's investigation and suggested that this might be more of a case of record-keeping problems than fraud as these defendants sought to keep up with rapidly changing rules for the food aid program.
Shouldn’t the one person who absolutely should be on the jury be the person reporting a bribery attempt?
No, because they’re automatically biased against the defendant. The goal is no bias, regardless of reason.
Declining a bribe makes you automatically biased? Huh?
Yes.
Even if I believed someone were innocent, if someone attempted to purchase my vote, I would be personally offended, and immediately view the defendant as untrustworthy. It would bias my judgement.
The article states that the judge removed the jury member from the case and swapped in an alternate. The judge is also sequestering the jury, so they must spend the remainder of the case in a hotel - hopefully avoiding any other attempts to bias the jury.
Elmo has no idea how juror selection works.
Your comment requires elaboration.
What happened here was jury tampering, and it occurred after jury selection.
How would jury selection factor in?
Personally, I think the bias caused by attempting to bribe a member of the jury would be entirely fair. It should be used as further evidence of guilt in the trial itself. Even if they are innocent of the original charges, they are corrupt and I can’t say I have any problem with removing power from such corruption.