03-11-2015, 03:02 PM
(03-11-2015, 01:40 PM)Observer Wrote: Excerpts from the article:
That same day, prosecutor Juan Martinez filed a secret motion to have the juror removed, and he based his argument on screen shots of the juror's Facebook page, in which it appeared that she had "liked" news outlets. That suggested she might have visited certain sites during trial -- jurors are admonished from reading or viewing anything about the case outside the courtroom -- but Stephens didn't think the argument was strong enough and denied the motion.
Juror 17 claimed that during the trial she had only visited her Facebook page to wish a relative a happy birthday.
The next day, March 4, defense attorneys Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott filed a motion for mistrial, alleging that Stephens' questioning of jurors could be viewed as coercion. Case law frowns on a judge knowing the split in juror votes, which way they are leaning or trying to influence their individual verdicts.
Stephens herself wrote in the minute entry, "The Arizona Supreme Court has cautioned that in a capital case impermissible coercion of the jury's verdict might be found if a trial court is not careful respecting the jury's deliberations in the penalty phase
___________________________________________________________________________
Thanks for the posting of the article link Observer. This is interesting. I think if Juan Martinez were to pursue that further, it would have involved a subpoena (FB) to find out the date and time Juror 17 indicated she "liked" a particular news outlet. The difference between 'following' or just 'liking' is also the question. Dates and times don't appear on "Liked" pages, but they do on "Follow" pages once those appear on a timeline with new articles or photos. I like several pages, but don't follow each one and an option to opt out on something appearing on ones page is available. Same with "liking" a book, there's no date or time indicated and there aren't any updates I subscribe to.
With the response by Juror 17, that she'd only visited to wish a relative Happy Birthday, JSS considered, I think, her response as having passed the litmus test - even if she considered only that it may be a thin line, JSS would have had to question Juror 17's integrity to make the determination to dismiss her on juror misconduct. And that may have been unfounded.
I'm not sure I would consider JSS' judgement as having ruled on the wrong side of the law, especially when the other half of the equation for all parties involved is whether this was an appeal issue and/or an automatic mistrial because of the other jurists belief about Juror 17's conduct. As you noted:
Case law frowns on a judge knowing the split in juror votes, which way they are leaning or trying to influence their individual verdicts. I believe it was correct in that she sent the message back that they were to continue deliberating.
That may have been a legitimate circumvention to the issue of coercion of jurists in deliberation. They had to continue and when the deadlock could not be reconsidered in unison, the final notice had to be given by them and likely cannot be viewed as "influence" by JSS for either verdict or as in this case, a hung jury.
And while "Case law frowns on a judge knowing the split," I think the determination of whether there was judicial misconduct would be on a case by case scenario. You also noted: "The Arizona Supreme Court has cautioned that in a capital case impermissible coercion of the jury's verdict might be found if a trial court is not careful respecting the jury's deliberations in the penalty phase I feel JSS did respect the jury's deliberations - the opportunity existed, just as the 11 jurists noted, to 'sleep on it' for one more night. JSS accepted their consideration, the jury continued the next day until the deadlock could not be reconsidered by one individual.