Via firedoglake:
***BREAKING: There has been exposure of at least one of the jurors to media coverage of the trial. There is discussion going on in chambers with Judge Walton and counsel for both sides as to how to proceed. There will likely be individual voir dire (discussions) with each and every juror now to determine if there is a taint to the jury process. We won’t know anything about whether things will proceed until that has concluded. There is a possibility of a mistrial being declared but, again, we will not know anything unless and until the judge and attorneys speak with the jury foreperson and all of the jurors, and make their determination as to how things will or will not proceed from there. More news as we get it.***
David Schuster, via BarbinMD:
The jury now, which is in its fourth day of deliberations, has a major problem which could put this entire case on the verge of a mistrial. The jury foreperson sent the Judge a note this morning, saying that one of the jurors in this panel had contact with news coverage of this case and used that information as part of the jury deliberations with others. In other words, this outside news coverage seeped into deliberations despite the Judge adamantly demanding that jurors not watch any news coverage, that they judge this case strictly on what is presented in court. This could be a huge problem. And what the court is now doing is, the Judge and the attorneys, in chambers, are asking the jury foreperson exactly what information has been essentially been moved into jury deliberations, who was the juror who came in contact with it, what did that juror say to the other jurors. And then after the court is done talking to the foreperson, then the Judge and the attorneys on both sides will then go individually, one at a time if necessary, to question each individual juror about what impact all of this had. In most cases, when a Judge has said there can be no consideration of outside information, and that information gets into jury deliberations, in most cases the court will declare a mistrial.
I’m not a lawyer but it sounds likely that one wayward juror has tainted the entire pool. This is exactly what Victoria Toensing, Byron York, and the Washington Post were trying to accomplish. Of course, they wanted to taint the jury so it would acquit, not so it would lead to a mistrial. Of course, Deborah Howell dismissively denies this:
“This wasn’t tampering. The judge has instructed jurors to stay away from news reports.”
Yeah, so the biggest local paper prints a bunch of lies about the case and the prosecutor while the jury is deliberating…but it doesn’t matter because the judge told the jury not to read the paper.
I’ll update this as I get more news.
Update [2007-2-26 10:50:19 by BooMan]: From Christy:
Once they go through the discussion with the jurors on the record, there will be some determination made as to whether or not there is a substantial impact on the jury deliberations — or whether there is cause for a mistrial. If a mistrial is declared, they will have to retry the whole case.
What is more likely is that the judge will determine that what the juror saw did not have a substantial impact. Judge Walton will then admonish the jury not to have contact with media — period. He may decide to sequester the jury from here on out. He will likely issue a cautionary instruction on how this should or should not enter the jury room. But we’ll have to see what the level of exposure was to know what will happen.
Update [2007-2-26 12:15:25 by BooMan]: The jury will proceed with only 11 members.
