Shahriyar Bolandian was convicted on six counts of insider trading arising from trades in two merger targets — PLX Technologies and ExactTarget — that his college friend Ashish Aggarwal allegedly tipped him about while working as an investment banking analyst in J.P. Morgan's Technology, Media, and Telecom group. Bolandian netted roughly $25,000 in his personal account and $2,500 in his father's account on the PLX trade, and approximately $300,000 in his personal account and $100,000 in his father's and sister's accounts on the ExactTarget trade. Aggarwal, tried separately in January 2017, was acquitted on twenty-six counts; the jury hung on the remaining four. Bolandian was sentenced to 24 months in prison.
The Sixth Amendment issue arose on the second day of Bolandian's April 2024 trial, when Juror No. 6 sent the district court a note disclosing that his uncle owned a private investment firm in San Francisco, had conducted business with J.P. Morgan, and might have a relationship to a witness. When District Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. asked Juror No. 6 whether he could still be fair to both sides, the juror answered: "Honestly, I am not sure, Your Honor." The judge did not probe further. Instead, he instructed Juror No. 6 to monitor his own feelings and alert the court if he still felt uncertain after hearing all the evidence. Defense counsel stated they had no objection to the juror's continued service. After closing arguments, both sides agreed there was no need to question Juror No. 6 further. He went on to serve as the jury's foreperson.
Writing for the panel, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw held that the district court's independent duty to investigate juror bias that emerges during trial is a prerequisite to any knowing waiver of a juror bias claim, and that defense counsel may not waive that duty. Because no reasonable investigation occurred, Bolandian forfeited — rather than waived — his challenge, making the claim reviewable for plain error.
On the merits, the panel held that plain error was established. The district court impermissibly delegated its investigative responsibility to the juror himself by instructing him to self-monitor, a procedure the Ninth Circuit had already rejected in United States v. Kechedzian, 902 F.3d 1023 (9th Cir. 2018). The panel noted that Juror No. 6 never affirmatively stated he could be impartial, and that his statement that he was "not sure" he could be fair was more equivocal even than the "I'll try" responses that prior Ninth Circuit precedent had found insufficient to establish impartiality. Rather than inquire further into the reasons for the juror's expressed bias or attempt to rehabilitate him, the opinion said, the district judge abdicated his indispensable role in preserving an impartial jury.
The panel also held that the errors affected Bolandian's substantial rights and seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. The opinion pointed to the tension between Aggarwal's acquittal and Bolandian's conviction — and noted that at oral argument, when asked why the two college friends had different outcomes, the government answered only that they had been tried separately before different juries. The juror who expressed bias became the foreperson of the jury that convicted Bolandian.
The panel reversed and remanded for a new trial, leaving unresolved the broader questions of whether juror bias constitutes structural error that can never be waived, or a fundamental right requiring the defendant's personal waiver.