Gerardo N. Lara was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder in the stabbing of his wife, Marissa Lara. But the defense attorney saw one of the jurors buying a newspaper during the trial; at a mistrial hearing, the juror, Lindy L. Heaster, denied the purchase, but a videotape from the 7-11 proved otherwise, and the judge threw out the verdict. Heaster’s been held in contempt for violating the court’s orders to disregard press coverage and lying to the court, and could be socked with the costs of the trial.
While the juror certainly committed contempt and (from the news reports) seems to have committed perjury, I wonder if the mistrial remedy for the defendant is a bit extreme. The April 15 Washington Post Heaster bought had no coverage of the trial. And if Heaster read the April 15 Potomac News coverage of the trial, the only thing she learned was that an argument the defense wanted to make that the judge refused to tell the jury. Should the law recognize the potential for harmless error here? I’ve turned on comments; please keep discussion civil and limited to this topic. (Tara Young, “Indiscretion Gets Juror In Trouble”, Washington Post, Apr. 22; Maria Hegstad, “Judge declares mistrial in Lara case”, Potomac News, Apr. 21; Tara Young, “N.Va. Murder Conviction Erased by Juror Buying Newspaper”, Potomac News, Apr. 21; Rob Seal, “Lara found guilty”, Potomac News, Apr. 16). More discussion: Apr. 25 post.
My first case as a full-time attorney was the briefing of an appeal of a “sudden acceleration” civil case. A juror had failed to tell the court that he had previously had the driver over for dinner and was active in the same church, and then proceeded to announce in deliberations that “Charlie would never hit the wrong pedal.” So, amidst this and other shenanigans that converted me into a proponent of tort reform, the jury decided that electromagnetic interference with a defective cruise control was what caused the elderly driver to go faster and faster as he hit the brake as hard as he could. (A NHTSA study showed that elderly drivers are over ten times more likely to experience “sudden acceleration”; short drivers and drivers using a particular model of car for the first few thousand miles are also more prone to sudden acceleration. That’s some EMI! As evidence like this pours in, plaintiffs are gradually switching their theory to one accusing the auto companies of failure to warn.) In an unpublished opinion, the North Carolina appeals court refused to grant a new trial, and the Center for Auto Safety called this a victory for car safety.
10 Comments
Based on my understanding of the reason for including avoidance of media coverage in the court’s instructions to the jury, I would say calling a mistrial is extreme. Jurors are to avoid media coverage to prevent the appearance of bias. That’s the most important reason. Court instructions will reason that a juror can be biased by the media, but jurors already come to the table with opinions, beliefs, and personal experience. This juror, I’m guessing, committed two wrongs. First, she broke her oath to follow the court’s instructions. I’m assumming the oath included an agreement to abide by the court’s instructions. Second, she lied to the judge regarding the newspaper purchase. Should she be punished? Yes. Should the judge have called a mistrial? Probably not. If he chose not to call a mistrial, would it have saved taxpayers’ money? Maybe that would depend on the appeals process and decisions made by the defense.
As time goes on it seems that it will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to isolate jurors from media information, and only the most conscientious jurors will be able to discipline themselves to avoid any medium where they might be exposed to it. Granted, this juror seems to have willfully violated instructions, but I think the law will have to evolve to accomodate a world where pagers and cellphones can give as much or more information as a newspaper, otherwise the potential grounds for mistrials simply increase every day.
Good to see that she’s being made to pay the defense costs. I can understand simply forgetting and buying the paper, but not lying about it afterwards. I might be upset about the mistrial if she’d said “yes, I forgot and bought the papers” and then explained that she had or hadn’t read about the trial.
The judge is completely out of line in this regard. I understand that as a citizen of this country we have an obligation to jury duty, but judges cannot expect people to isolate themselves from the world during a trial. An order to refrain from from reading or viewing or listening to anything about the trial would be much more reasonable. In any case, the only sure way to make sure of this is to sequester a jury. Any of the other jurors could have and probably did watch the news or read the news online or read a newspaper that was delivered to their residence. Also, judges have too much power and I believe that a large percentage of them misuse their power. In my opinion there are a very large number of problems with our legal system that need to be fixed, but I despair at them ever even being looked at.
If a juror has been proven to have violated his oath and lied in court about it that fact destroya the integrity of jury system. Anything else would mean there are no standards
One point that has not been addressed in your post was when the defense attorney first informed the Court of the transgression. If the defense counsel witnessed before the verdict, why was it brought out afterward? Was this a strategic decision? As a prosecutor, I have experienced defendant/opposing counsel withholding similar information until after a guilty verdict in order for the defendant to get another shot at a trial. In any event, a mistrial is certainly an extreme remedy and if any late reporting occurred, the costs of the first trial be borne, or at least shared by the defense counsel.
This may be a foolish question, but what latitude do judges have to decide these things? Is a $30,000 fine within what may be legally assigned for perjury? Can a judge assign whatever penalty he wants, and if so within what bounds? (I was under the impression that there were fairly strict penalty guidelines for this sort of thing).
That said, the juror committed perjury and should recieve the sensible, legal punishment for same. The judge should have ruled that, since the paper contained nothing that could bias the juror, the verdict should stand. That’s only common sense.
As I believe the late Warren Burger once said “The constitution guarantees everyone a fair trial, it does not guarantee a perfect trial”.
Tim: I don’t think the defense attorney sandbagged. He reported what he saw to the judge, the judge questioned the juror, who said she was just buying coffee, and deliberations resumed. The defense attorney then obtained additional evidence.
Belac: judges have the power to hold people in their courtroom in civil contempt. Coincidentally, as if to illustrate this point, AP is reporting the tale of a judge who fined a yawning juror $100.
Ted: Thanks. Does civil contempt carry with it a possible $30,000 fine? I’m just trying to ascertain whether the costs-of-the-trial penalty is a legitimate, and not excessive, penalty. It seems out of line with other fines.