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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 620 Filed 02/25/22 Page 9 of 21

The potential impropriety that warrants a hearing is not that someone with a history of sexual abuse may have served on the jury. Rather, it is Juror 50’s potential failure to respond truthfully to questions during the jury selection process that asked for such material information so that any potential bias could be explored. Accordingly, the Court will hold a hearing limited in scope to Juror 50’s answers to Questions 25 and 48 of the questionnaire.

C. The Defendant has not justified an inquiry into Juror 50’s social media

The parties devote significant portions of the briefs to the question of whether Juror 50 answered falsely the Court’s questions about social media usage during voir dire. To the extent that the Defendant seeks a hearing to probe Juror 50’s answers to voir dire about his social media usage, her arguments are based on speculation, and she has failed to make the high showing required. See Baker, 899 F.3d at 130. At voir dire, when asked if he “use[s] social media,” Juror 50 stated, “I do, but I actually just deleted them because I just got out of a relationship and I didn’t want to see anything regarding them. So I am fully off of it right now.” Nov. 16, 2021 Tr. at 133. The Court then asked, “What did you use, Facebook, Twitter?” to which Juror 50 replied “Facebook and Instagram,” clarifying that the accounts contained “[p]ersonal stuff, like selfies.” Id.

The screenshots proffered by the Defendant do not demonstrate that any of these answers implicate McDonough. First, Juror 50 did not deny having a Twitter account. Second, Juror 50’s account had only 1 follower and followed only 39 people, which corroborates that his Twitter use was, at most, relatively minimal. See Maxwell Br. at 17. Third, the fact that Juror 50’s Twitter account was opened in April 2021 and that he used it again in January 2022, after the completion of the trial, is consistent with Juror 50’s answer that he deleted his social media accounts, or just the social media applications, shortly before voir dire. The same is true of Juror

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