Atticus Grinch |
04-22-2005 08:54 PM |
Judge comes down on lying, rule-defying, stupid juror
Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'm chapped at two people:
1) The defendant for necessitating a trial, and taking a life, not to mention preventing twelve jurors from reading Ziggy.
2) The judge, for granting a mistrial soley on the basis of a juror's perjury, when that perjury may not have had any relationship to the verdict itself.
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I'm chapped at them, too, but save some outrage for the juror. Judges have to show some responsiveness to this supposed "stealth juror" problem. Judges don't particularly like mistrial motions and they routinely get denied even by pro-defense judges. When they go into chambers with a juror and the juror gets caught in a lie (when it's rare to have any basis to impeach), the Judge could have concluded she lied about other things affecting the trial on which there was no direct impeachment evidence. She might have sworn up and down that she hadn't seen anything about the trial on TV, too, and there would have been no videotape.
OTOH, remember the stealth Peterson juror who got dinged because Geragos said he had a witness who sat next to her on a bus to Reno in which she said she was planning to get on the jury to get Peterson to fry? It turns out Geragos's tipster had doubled up on his medications and slept the entire way to Reno. He refused to say any of what Geragos had profferred he would say under any kind of perjury penalty of his own. That part didn't get as much media play.
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