A Juror Teaches a Judge a Lesson (8/13/07)
by Dean Hartwell
In April 2007, a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court dismissed me as a juror from a case in which I served as foreperson. The judge claimed that I had concealed a bias against the defendants, NBC and NBC Studios, during the voir dire questioning.
This decision became the turning point of the entire trial. We jurors had submitted a verdict to the judge the previous afternoon that favored the plaintiffs and gave them the opportunity to argue for punitive damages. The verdict (never read) got thrown out and the two sides settled for what was likely a lesser amount.
With the importance of my dismissal in mind, one might think the judge gave the decision serious thought before making it. But, he compromised his ability to be objective about this subject by letting one of the sides set the terms of debate.
After we turned in our verdict in the afternoon, the defense, allegedly learning I was the foreperson, entered my name into Google© and discovered my web site. There they found one essay in particular that they would stretch their point about bias on.
The essay, titled “Corporate Media Favors Incumbents,” starts out by defending the corporate media (including NBC) from criticism that they are influenced by ideology. Later in the essay, I name specific stories that I thought the corporate media should have covered and others that they should not have covered.
These parts of my column apparently did not bother NBC, because they used bold font to stress a subsequent paragraph in which I said that the corporate media covers “phony” stories sometimes and how they benefit from reciprocity from the government. It was this paragraph that many in the media (surprise) ran as an example of my “bias.”
After both sides debated the issue before the judge in open court (while we jurors were kept in sequestration away from the argument), the judge finally called on the one person who knew the most about the web site and the essay: me. I went to the chambers and sat before the judge with representatives of both sides present.
Then the judge let a golden opportunity to hear the most convincing arguments from both sides slip away. Instead of describing the issue of bias in the instant case, the definition of bias and its burden of proof, he quickly confronted me with the “Corporate Media” essay’s bold-faced paragraph.
It put me on the defensive when the defense had made the accusation. In our legal system, the “moving party” (here, the defense as they wanted a motion to dismiss me) typically goes first. The judge acted appalled that I would suggest that the corporate media sometimes covers up stories embarrassing to the government. At no time did I get the chance to bring up any of my own issues.
Focusing on one paragraph to the exclusion of all else smacks of bias in its own right. I would have told the judge that I had written at least as many essays which made favorable references NBC as did not. I also would have mentioned that only a small percentage of my 200 essays on the site mentioned NBC or the corporate media.
The judge moved on and fielded a question from one of the defense attorneys about the need to poll the jurors as to whether I had “biased” them. This move was premature as there had been no proof shown of bias.
Bias is defined as: a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
Can one paragraph truly demonstrate this sort of inclination? Maybe if it were the only statement one ever made on the topic in question. But even that is a stretch. Here, I wrote other articles demonstrating different points of view about NBC. Also, the judge never acknowledged the “Corporate Media” essay was almost two years old.
What’s more, I understand through other jurors that the judge asked questions of them as to whether I had been biased. To my knowledge, no juror said any such thing about me. In fact, at least three of them have told the media that I was not at all biased. If bias is what bias does, where was the bias here when no one thought I acted with bias?
Furthermore, the voir dire questionnaire that I allegedly withheld information from asked me about my beliefs. If they wanted to use the word “opinion” on the questionnaire, they would have. An opinion “lacks certainty,” whereas a belief “has conviction.” I did not speak with conviction about NBC because of my difference in viewpoints and because I did not act upon it (like participating in a boycott of NBC or its parent company, General Electric).
The judge demonstrated his own bias when he ran roughshod through our “discussion” in the chambers. All he needed to do was to give me notice of the accusation or at least a chance to state my own case.
There were other facts I could have shown in my own defense. My wife runs a non-profit corporation (which I disclosed on the questionnaire) in which she receives the bulk of her corporation's income from other corporations. I work for a municipal corporation, the City of Glendale. The judge never specified what type of corporation when he told the public and the media that my site “is critical of corporations in general -- and NBC in particular.”
If I really were against corporations and NBC, I would promote this opinion through my web site name and description to attract people who opposed corporations. I would probably call it “Hartwell’s Watch of the Corporate Media” and tell search engines why I did not like corporations or what the problem was with NBC.
Instead, my site name is “Hartwell Perspective” and my search engine descriptions tell of my “generally liberal perspective of politics” and similar words. To contemplate that liberals oppose corporations is absurd – I have pointed out in essays that liberal politicians take corporate Political Action Committee money.
When I posted the “Corporate Media” essay, people responded, as they often do to my essays. All who responded to this column talked about whether the corporate media follows an ideology or not. No one said a word about my contention that the corporate media withholds information at the behest of the government. If to be is to be perceived, then it is clear to me that my essay was not anti-corporation, anti-corporate media or anti-NBC.
Buried in the 52-page motion that the defense presented to the judge asking for my dismissal were other essays they apparently did not like. The judge never mentioned these essays to me and I only found out about them by going to http://www.hollywoodreporteresq.com/thresq/photos/NBC_Motion-for-Mistrial.pdf and downloading the motion. If these other essays, described below, constituted bias, why didn’t the judge show them to me? Usually people accused of wrongdoing are notified of the specific charges.
In the motion, the defense attorneys state, “Mr. Hartwell’s belief that corporate media companies, including NBC, are linked to the Bush Administration is also troublesome because he has written articles suggesting that, among other things, the Bush Administration had prior knowledge of or was involved in the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11.”
The don’t acknowledge that I never accused NBC of withholding information about 9/11. In fact, they fail to note that one of their exhibits shows that I cited NBC’s television show Meet the Press as a source of information. No writer I know of would ever cite a source they had a bias against.
My essays form the exhibits for the motion, along with a photocopy of one of my pages that has a picture of me in order to demonstrate identity. An exhibit about my essay “Try Cheney in the Media,” analyzes how strict with evidentiary requirements the corporate media should be about Cheney’s alleged wrongdoings.
Though I am critical of how the corporate media handled voting irregularities in the presidential election of 2004 and suggest they buried the story out of deference to the incumbent President Bush, I also commend the corporate media for uncovering previous scandals, like Watergate and the Iran-Contra Scandal.
In the exhibit for “War Games on 9/11,” I cite the aforementioned Meet the Press show, in which Cheney revealed interesting information to host Tim Russert. I also note that another member of the corporate media, Cable News Network, had relevant things to say about the war games on that date.
And the last exhibit, for “How to Silence a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist,” contains no mention of NBC at all. I simply ask several questions about the official theory about 9/11 and invite answers. I go as far as to say that if anyone can give me good answers to all of the questions, I would stop calling 9/11 an “inside job.” In every exhibit, they “cherry pick” anything that they believe shows bias and ignore everything else.
In the end, the defense attorneys come across as the biased ones. They must have ignored American Bar Association Guidelines which demand that attorneys address the court with candor (the whole story). Had they looked at the whole story first before making a decision on a motion, they would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Instead, they looked for bias in all of the wrong places.
The author served in the Kohan v. NBC trial, also known as the “Will and Grace” case. His web site, www.deanhartwell.com contains many essays on a variety of political issues and contains more accounts of the trial. Hartwell received a law degree from Glendale University College of Law in 2004.