United States v. William A. Widgery, Sr.

I can certainly accept the majority’s view that the right of the defendant to see a note from the jurors and comment on the judge’s response may in some cases be harmless. See at 329. The majority, however, gives inadequate weight to the principle that “[i]n a criminal case, any private communication, contact, or tampering directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury is ... deemed presumptively prejudicial, if not made in pursuance of known rules of the court and the instructions and directions of the court made during trial, with full knowledge…