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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 653 Filed 04/01/22 Page 32 of 40

The Court is unpersuaded. First, the Second Circuit has not held that bias must be
implied when a juror has a personal experience similar to the issues at trial. The Defendant’s
only in-circuit decision is the district court opinion in Daugerdas. See Maxwell Br. at 30–35;
Maxwell Post-Hearing Br. at 5. In passing, the Daugerdas court noted that “[c]ourts imply bias
‘when there are similarities between the personal experiences of the juror and the issues being
litigated.’” 867 F. Supp. 2d at 472 (quoting United States v. Sampson, 820 F. Supp. 2d 151, 164
(D. Mass. 2011)). But the court resolved the motion on other grounds—it did not imply bias
because that juror had similar experiences to those at issue in the trial, but instead (as discussed
above) implied bias because of that juror’s “brazen[],” “deliberate,” and “repeated lies” and
creation of “a totally fictitious persona in her drive to get on the jury.” Id. at 472–74.

The Second Circuit has made clear that implied bias is an intentionally narrow category.
The circuit has “consistently refused ‘to create a set of unreasonably constricting presumptions
that jurors be excused for cause due to certain occupational or other special relationships which
might bear directly or indirectly on the circumstances of a given case, where . . . there is no
showing of actual bias or prejudice.’” Torres, 128 F.3d at 46 (quoting United States v. Brown,
644 F.2d 101, 104–05 (2d Cir. 1981)); see also United States v. Garcia, 936 F.2d 648, 652 (2d
Cir. 1991). As noted above, the Torres court held that it was not an abuse of discretion for the
trial court to infer that a juror was biased when she engaged in money structuring activities that
were similar to conduct charged in the case. 128 F.3d at 46–47. But the circuit “decline[d] to
hold as a general matter that, where a juror has engaged in conduct similar to that of the
defendant at trial, the trial judge must presume bias.” Id. at 46 (emphasis added). As the court
explained, “[s]uch cases are unlikely to present the ‘extreme situations’ that call for mandatory

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