Thus, unless the initial request for dismissal is transparent, the court will likely prove unable to establish conclusively the reasons underlying it. Given these circumstances, we must hold that if the record evidence discloses any possibility that the request to discharge stems from the juror’s view of the sufficiency of the government’s evidence, the court must deny the request. Cf. Essex, 734 F.2d at 843 (finding a violation of the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict because there was a “possibilit[y]” that the absent juror was “a lone holdout for innocence in the face of a hostile pro-conviction majority” and that the prosecution had not carried its “burden of convincing the entire membership of the jury”); United States v. Stratton, 779 F.2d 820, 832 (2d Cir.1985) (<HOLDING>), cert. denied, - U.S.-, 106 S.Ct. 2285, 90
holding that the discharge of a juror to observe a religious holiday was proper when the record did not present even the slightest basis to believe that juror no 10 posed an obstacle to reaching a unanimous verdict holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when the trial judge questioned the juror extensively enough to satisfy itself that the juror was not biased emphasis added holding that the district courts dismissal of a juror after five weeks of deliberations violated the defendants right to a unanimous jury because the record evidence suggested the juror found the evidence insufficient for a conviction holding that a defendant did not waive his right to be present at an ex parte encounter between the judge and juror because he was not present at the time of the communication and therefore had no opportunity to object when the error was committed holding that though judge did not question juror individually note from juror to judge requesting private meeting to ask legal question did not suggest juror would not base verdict on evidence