A federal court in the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that the city's overwhelming liberal lean doesn't prejudice the jury pool against Jan. 6 defendants.
Retired New York Police Department officer Thomas Webster leaves the federal courthouse in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Webster was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison for attacking the U.S. Capitol and using a metal flagpole to assault …A federal court in the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that the city’s overwhelming liberal lean doesn’t prejudice the jury pool against Jan. 6 defendants.
Thomas Webster, a retired New York police officer who was convicted of five felonies and one misdemeanor related to the Capitol riot, brought the case to challenge his conviction because the district court denied his motion to change venues.He had argued in court documents that the jury pool in Washington was “simply too Democratic, too connected to the federal government, and too steeped in January 6th news coverage to produce twelve unbiased jurors.
He also said that a poll revealed Washington residents’ negative impression of people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot.The court reasoned that a negative impression of an event — like Jan. 6 or a murder — says nothing about a juror’s ability to be impartial. “What the Constitution forbids is for a juror to hold a firmly entrenched view about an individual defendant’s guilt or innocence before the trial starts,” Judge Patricia Ann Millett, an Obama appointee, wrote in the unanimous opinion.The court also said the fact that D.C. residents voted overwhelmingly for President Biden doesn’t matter for empaneling an impartial jury.
“The political inclinations of a populace writ large say nothing about an individual’s ability to serve impartially in adjudicating the criminal conduct of an individual,” the court said.
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