Gold v. United States/Dissent Reed

Mr. Justice REED, with whom Mr. Justice BURTON and Mr. Justice CLARK join, dissenting.

The Remmer case, dealing with a Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into a suspected approach to a juror by a defendant, is not in our judgment controlling in this FBI inquiry of people who happened to be Gold jurors concerning a different Communist case. Compare the facts and conclusions of law in Remmer v. United States, 350 U.S. 377, 381, 382, 76 S.Ct. 425, 427, 428, and 347 U.S. 227, 74 S.Ct. 450, 98 L.Ed. 654, with the facts stated in Gold v. United States, 237 F.2d 764, 775.

While a presumption of prejudice arises when a juror in a criminal case receives a private communication bearing even remotely on the trial, the question in each such case is whether that presumption has been rebutted. Cf. Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 451, 98 L.Ed. 654, and Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 149-150, 13 S.Ct. 50, 53, 36 L.Ed. 917.

We think the record showing of the jurors' reaction to the present inquiry, Record 1586-1673, adequately supports the trial judge's conclusion that no effect upon the jurors adverse to the defendant, because of the accidental intrusion upon their privacy, could reasonably be anticipated.

The juror and the alternate who felt disturbed by the incident were discharged. In our view this made it proper to go ahead, as the court did, with the trial.