Big yikes! U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, appointed by former President Barack Obama, dismissed nine people from the jury pool for the Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial due to not being vaccinated against coronavirus.
He claims that he did so to keep jurors and their family safe. However, isn't that a breach of their privacy and private medical records? Not to mention, this could completely skew the jury.
“If you excuse those (unvaccinated) people, you no longer have a representative jury,” warned IMS jury consultant Christina Marinakis.
The gender, age, and ethnicity of the jurors is not known according to Reuters, “but vaccinated Americans are more likely to be older, female, white, college educated and Democratic.”
Reuters reports:
Data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows 70 percent of white Americans have been vaccinated, compared to 65 percent of Black Americans; 71 percent of females, compared to 63 percent of males; and 86 percent of Democrats, compared to 54 percent of Republicans.
While both the prosecution and defense in the Holmes’ trial backed the decision to excuse unvaccinated jurors, the issue could be grounds for challenging a verdict in cases where the parties do not agree.
Hadar Aviram, a professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law who specializes in civil rights, said that in general, the demographic disparities resulting from excusing unvaccinated jurors would not run afoul of the Constitution, since the rationale for excluding them was not discriminatory. But she said screening by vaccination status could lead to a jury that is unrepresentative of the general population in meaningful ways. Unvaccinated jurors are more likely to be politically conservative than liberal, she said.
“Any unusual restrictions on who is eligible to serve on the jury in a particular case could raise issues on appeal,” stated Bartlit Beck attorney Kaspar Stoffelmayr.
The Hill reported on the trial:
Theranos, a now-defunct blood testing startup, raised a significant amounts of money from investors in its heyday, but a 2015 investigation by the Wall Street Journal showed that there were limitations to the company’s technology, which ultimately affected the viability of the business later on.
Holmes is now facing multiple counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos president, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, will have his own fraud trial.
Court filings indicate that Holmes will likely testify during her trial and they also indicate a possible defense strategy that alleges that Holmes suffered abuse against Balwani, affecting her ability to make decisions.
Sounds pretty bias to me to dismiss the unvaccinated. What do you think?
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