Mother's Sexy Jury Sting Operation Goes Awry

[Caliga]

  I think she's a loon, but it's rather touching she did all this for her son.

[dps]

I think she's a loon, but it's rather touching she did all this for her son.

While I see where you're coming from, this isn't all that different than if she had tried to bribe a juror during the trial.  I don't think it's as serious as bribing a juror, but it was still an attempt to subvert the justice system, and I agree with Marty that jail time would be appropriate.

[alfred russel]

I remember that story from the old Languish. Glad it turned out this way. They should have sent the bitch to prison for contempt/disrupting the course of justice, too.

Huh? How does this disrupt justice at all?

I don't know what the rules are, and I hope verdicts require more to overturn than showing one juror lied / or was prejudiced. But if she has shown that the jury was prejudiced against her son, then I don't see how it is just to not give her son a new trial. I don't even think she did anything that should be legally wrong, even if she is demented.

[Caliga]

While I see where you're coming from, this isn't all that different than if she had tried to bribe a juror during the trial.  I don't think it's as serious as bribing a juror, but it was still an attempt to subvert the justice system, and I agree with Marty that jail time would be appropriate.

Yes, I agree with all of that as well.

[DontSayBanana]

Huh? How does this disrupt justice at all?

I don't know what the rules are, and I hope verdicts require more to overturn than showing one juror lied / or was prejudiced. But if she has shown that the jury was prejudiced against her son, then I don't see how it is just to not give her son a new trial. I don't even think she did anything that should be legally wrong, even if she is demented.

The judge just called it a misconduct and refused a retrial on those grounds, but nothing sounds legally wrong... by dint of timing. The ironic thing is if she had done this during the trial, it would have been tampering with a juror and succeeded in setting up for a mistrial.

Actually, trial rules call for a unanimous vote from the jury, or else it's a hung jury and gets sent to retrial. If it can be proven that the juror lied, that could possibly be enough to overturn the jury's unanimous vote and require a retrial, IIRC.

[alfred russel]

Huh? How does this disrupt justice at all?

I don't know what the rules are, and I hope verdicts require more to overturn than showing one juror lied / or was prejudiced. But if she has shown that the jury was prejudiced against her son, then I don't see how it is just to not give her son a new trial. I don't even think she did anything that should be legally wrong, even if she is demented.

The judge just called it a misconduct and refused a retrial on those grounds, but nothing sounds legally wrong... by dint of timing. The ironic thing is if she had done this during the trial, it would have been tampering with a juror and succeeded in setting up for a mistrial.

Actually, trial rules call for a unanimous vote from the jury, or else it's a hung jury and gets sent to retrial. If it can be proven that the juror lied, that could possibly be enough to overturn the jury's unanimous vote and require a retrial, IIRC.

I have two points of view on this, which at first glance may seem contradictory (so I'll spell them out separately):

a) I know it takes a unanimous verdict at trial (as it should), but years later I hope the standard isn't that you can show that one of the jurors should have been disqualified to get a retrial. That seems to be opening the door to never ending litigation--I'd like the bar to be higher. I'm comfortable with an 11-0 vote from good jurors and a 1-0 vote from a bad juror, if the bad juror doesn't come to light until after the trial is over.

b) Whatever the standard is to get a retrial, the misconduct of a third party shouldn't matter. Imagine a person murdered to get the information showing that a jury in the trial that sent you away for life was bribed to give a guilty verdict--what would your thoughts be on the judge not considering that bribery because obtaining it involved a crime? Are you okay with spending the rest of your life in jail without ever receiving a fair trial--and the world being aware of that--because the person who showed that you never got a fair trial committed a crime? Doesn't that seem to be punishing you for the actions of someone else?

That is just my point of view on the matter. I don't know what the law says.

[DontSayBanana]

I have two points of view on this, which at first glance may seem contradictory (so I'll spell them out separately):

a) I know it takes a unanimous verdict at trial (as it should), but years later I hope the standard isn't that you can show that one of the jurors should have been disqualified to get a retrial. That seems to be opening the door to never ending litigation--I'd like the bar to be higher. I'm comfortable with an 11-0 vote from good jurors and a 1-0 vote from a bad juror, if the bad juror doesn't come to light until after the trial is over.

b) Whatever the standard is to get a retrial, the misconduct of a third party shouldn't matter. Imagine a person murdered to get the information showing that a jury in the trial that sent you away for life was bribed to give a guilty verdict--what would your thoughts be on the judge not considering that bribery because obtaining it involved a crime? Are you okay with spending the rest of your life in jail without ever receiving a fair trial--and the world being aware of that--because the person who showed that you never got a fair trial committed a crime? Doesn't that seem to be punishing you for the actions of someone else?

That is just my point of view on the matter. I don't know what the law says.

I'm trying to remember the source on this (I was reading up on the penal code for some reason or other, and I believe it was buried in there), but I believe the rationale was that a verdict (including a judgement directed toward a juror!) based on information that was gained inappropriately "can only lead to a slippery slope." Basically, it's to maintain the credibility and authority of a court judgement, to avoid a situation where it could be claimed a prosecution could have manipulated information to obtain its verdict.

If any law-talkers can back me here, I'm definitely out on a limb.