18 U.S.C. § 401, states in relevant part:

"A court of the United States shall have power to punish by fine or imprisonment, at its discretion, such contempt of its authority, and none other, as . . . (3) Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command."

The court's authority extends to jurors who disobey a court's order. In one case in which a juror was found to have disobeyed a court order, the juror was sentenced to probation but ordered to pay the costs of prosecution as restitution (not a fine, the court can't order both.) See, United States v. Hand, 863 F.2d 1100, 1103 (3d Cir. 1988)holding that the United States Attorney's office was entitled to restitution for time and resources wasted in light of the defendant's impermissible conduct as a juror at trial. I can't even begin to guess how many millions of dollars the El Chapo juror could be ordered to pay.

Criminal contempt differs from civil contempt because it is a punitive sanction, designed to vindicate the dignity and authority of the court by punishing past acts of disobedience. When charged as a federal crime,it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It seems like that wouldn't be too hard in this case, if as VICE reports, the interview was conducted via video on Skype and video of the juror's admissions of willfully violating the court's orders was preserved.

Interestingly, since the criminal contempt statute does not provide a specific term of imprisonment and Congress never assigned a letter grade to the crime of contempt, which effectively renders it a "Class A" felony, the maximum term could be life in prison, so long as the person charged with contempt gets a jury trial. (While some circuits have labeled such a finding absurd, in the Second Circuit, where the El Chapo trial took place, courts have found otherwise. See, United States v. Ware, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5627 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 26, 2009). In any contempt proceeding in which the person is not given a jury trial, the maximum sentence is 6 months.

The sentencing guidelines don't have a guideline range for criminal contempt but suggest the court should use the guideline for the offense most closely matching the juror's misconduct (one example is Obstruction of Justice). The Application Note to the Obstruction Guideline states:

Because misconduct constituting contempt varies significantly and the nature of the contemptuous conduct, the circumstances under which the contempt was committed, the effect the misconduct had on the administration of justice, and the need to vindicate the authority of the court are highly context-dependent, the Commission has not provided a specific guideline for this offense. In certain cases, the offense conduct will be sufficiently analogous to § 2J1.2 (Obstruction of Justice) for that guideline to apply.

El Chapo's lawyer Eduardo Balarezo put out a statement:

“The juror’s allegations of the jury’s repeated and widespread disregard and contempt for the Court’s instructions, if true, make it clear that Joaquín did not get a fair trial,” Balarezo said in a statement. “The information apparently accessed by the jury is highly prejudicial, uncorroborated and inadmissible — all reasons why the Court repeatedly warned the jury against using social media and the internet to investigate the case.”

The scope of the juror's claimed misconduct which s/he alleges was joined in by at least 7 other jurors and alternates is pretty breath-taking, particularly the admission they lied directly to the judge when asked if they had read coverage of incriminating information about El Chapo the Court had ruled inadmissible.

Asked why they didn’t fess up to the judge when asked about being exposed to media coverage, the juror said they were worried about the repercussions. The punishment likely would have been a dismissal from the jury, but they feared something more serious.

“I thought we would get arrested,” the juror said. “I thought they were going to hold me in contempt.… I didn't want to say anything or rat out my fellow jurors. I didn't want to be that person. I just kept it to myself, and I just kept on looking at your Twitter feed.”

This makes little sense:The weekend before deliberations begin, the juror is concerned about getting held in contempt for accessing external information and doesn't want to "rat out" other jurors, but the day after the verdict, s/he calls VICE and confesses not only his/her own contemptuous conduct but that of his/her fellow jurors?

And the juror says another time when the judge asked jurors individually if they'd seen a prejudicial article about one of El Chapo's lawyers that appeared on a weekend, the juror says they all really hadn't seen it, but as soon as they got out from being questioned, one juror looked it up on a smartwatch and shared it with the others. (Which jurors had smartwatches?)

The juror being interviewed by VICE also says he/she stuck up for lawyer Lichtman in front of the other jurors:

The juror said several people had already been put off by Lichtman’s style of questioning during the trial: “They thought he was mean and he was nasty because of the way he would talk to the witnesses, and you know, I always told them he's doing his job. That's his job.”

It's not a slam dunk that the Court will take any action. For example, when it is alleged that external materials were brought into deliberations, that gets a hearing. But if it's just a question of jurors making statements after the trial about what jurors said to each other during deliberations, courts often say they can't question jurors about what happened during deliberations because the deliberation process has to be respected (and Federal Rule of Evidence 606 (b) prohibits asking jurors about conversations during deliberations except in limited circumstances).

(b) During an Inquiry into the Validity of a Verdict or Indictment.

(1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these matters.

(2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether:

(A) extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention;
(B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror; or
[c] a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict form.

For a juror misconduct claim to be successful, the defense usually has to establish prejudice. So far, the talkative juror hasn't claimed any of the jury's misconduct impacted their verdict. But given that the juror is not just alleging premature deliberations (voicing of guilt to other jurors while the trial was still going on) but that many jurors reviewed media reports during the trial, including reports about matters the Court ruled too prejudicial or unreliable to be admissible (amounting to improper external influences), unless the Court concludes the whole juror report is a scam, I think the Court will have to order some kind of inquiry of the individual jurors.

I'm puzzled by why this juror is blabbing and flaunting his/her and supposedly other jurors' intentional violations of the court's orders -- especially lying directly to the court. Is he or she just a stealth juror, using VICE as a means to get noticed by publishers and offered a book deal? Since the jurors are anonymous, maybe publishers wouldn't know who they are or how to approach them without them coming forward.

But no juror could be stupid enough to think their identity would remain secret after telling these kind of stories. Could the juror have been bribed to make up these allegations by someone who had illegally accessed the juror list and wants the verdict undone? This isn't unheard of. It happened in the early 90's when Miami Cocaine Cowboys Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta were initially acquitted. Three jurors, including the jury foreman, were later convicted of taking bribes (before the verdict). The foreman got 17 years and the two other jurors got 5 years. Even the foreman's parents were charged since they got some of the money. Magluta is serving a 195 year sentence at Supermax, and Willy, who finally pleaded guilty in exchange for a 20 year sentence, finished the sentence a few years ago and was put into ICE custody. He was deported to the Dominican Republic this past November, even though he's Cuban and had no ties there. The Dominicans complained and their government put out this story about it being temporary and then in December he was taken somewhere else, but it's not known where.

Or maybe the El Chapo juror was bribed in the form of a threat to the juror's family, rather than or in addition to promises of money?

Keegan Hamilton, the Vice reporter who interviewed the juror and attended almost every day of the trial, confirms the person in his video interview is one of the jurors he saw in court during the trial. Still, there's something funky about this juror interview, I just haven't figured out what.