We’ve written about the prevalence of this problem before and now it has hit closer to home. A friend of mine, Garry Adams, tried the taser-related death of Larry Noles in federal court a few weeks ago. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the officer who used the Taser on Mr. Noles. Two days later, Mr. Adams received a phone call from a juror who advises him that at least two jurors, including the foreman, whom was described as “the principle advocate for police”, consulted Taser International’s website and used that information to persuade the other jurors to find in favor of the officer. Mr. Adams filed a motion with the court and U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II ruled yesterday that the jurors researching information on the Internet could have affected the jury’s verdict.
At what point are we going to be forced to revert to the sequestering of jurors to avoid such problems? Obviously instructions to the jury to not do outside research is not working and the cost to re-try these cases will go up as more jurors have access to smartphones and the Internet from home while the trial and deliberations are proceeding. Surely the cost of re-trying cases will at some point be larger than the cost of paying for sequestering the jury, but how many cases of juror misconduct that aren’t reported will occur before our courts recognize the problem?
Read the full article on the jury misconduct at the Courier Journal.