Well actually, not the smelly people. You can go home, according to courts in Massachusetts.

During a murder trial, a judge in Massachusetts dismissed a juror because, in her words:

[The juror], for whatever reason, had some very bad, I guess to be blunt again, body odor, which was extremely strong, and I was able to detect in my lobby, as was the clerk…

The judge went on to say she was concerned that the other jurors could not actually concentrate on the trial due to the offensive smell emanating from their fellow juror. I guess if it is stinking up the lobby behind the court room, then it must have been pretty bad.

This case comes on the heels of another recent controversial juror dismissal, this time out of Florida. In a drug, weapon, and assault trial, the prosecutor struck the only African American on the jury pool. The defendant immediately challenged the prosecutor’s decision. The prosecutor stated that in his experience, overweight jurors were sympathetic to defendants. The prosecutor’s conclusory reasoning, coupled with their failure to strike other overweight defendant’s from the jury pool, did not sit well with the Florida Appeals Court and the decision was reversed.

How are these different? Issues of fairness to the defendant were not the main concern with the dismissal of the smelly juror. Instead, it was more an issue of fairness to the court. Can you conduct trial, (or do anything, for that matter) while being distracted by an offensive odor? Probably not, according to the judge.

So next time you get your jury summons, note the date you are supposed to report. Usually it is a good month away. If a deferment is not in the cards, don’t cancel those holiday plans! Just neglect your personal hygiene in the meantime, and you’ll be home free.

Avoid Jury Duty by Not Taking a Shower is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

“The thing that really bothered me was that [Drew's] attorney kept claiming that nobody reads the terms of service,” she said. “I always read the terms of service…. If you choose to be lazy and not go though that entire agreement or contract of agreement, then absolutely you should be held liable.”

Quick question: did you read the terms of service for this website? Did you read the terms of service for your email carrier? A forum or blog you just posted on? Google? And did Judge Wu not inform his jury of the difference between being “liable’ and being found “guilty?”  The juror goes on to say that she was disappointed with only securing misdemeanor verdicts, noting that if more malicious sounding text messages had been offered into evidence, it would have been easier to convince the entire jury that Drew’s conduct rose to the level of a felony.

First of all, I stand by my earlier comments when this trial ended that assigning criminal culpability to private contracts is kind of, well, crazy. What you and I go to jail for should always be written by legislators, not corporate attorneys or over zealous intellectual property contract lawyers. Although what Lori Drew did was heinous, let’s not go down this road to bring her to justice.

This also adds another layer to the debate. Namely, how much emotion and back-story should be considered acceptable in these kinds of cases? The juror here stated “trust me, I was so for this woman going away for 20 years,” and throughout the article appeared very moved by the clearly tragic consequences of this online hoax. The defense, for their part, tried their best to keep evidence of the suicide out of the trial entirely, under the (reasonable) argument that it would be more prejudicial than probative to whether Lori Drew actually committed a crime.

Lori Drew was not on trial for causing a suicide or for murder, but that is what this amounted to. How much of the verdict here was retributive rather than based on the law and the facts? Time will tell, as this will be appealed to the 9^th circuit court. (And from there possibly to the Supreme Court, who are not very fond of the 9^th circuit.) Although Lori Drew’s alleged actions are outrageous and deserve contempt, are they federal crimes? If the “act” being criminalized here is not following a website’s terms of service, I have to say no. Let’s keep those violations in the realm of “liability,” not “guilt.”

Lori Drew Jury Foreman Agrees: Don’t Read Your Terms of Service? Go Directly to Jail, Do not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Constitutional Rights is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

After years of openly lobbying for her sons acquittal from a murder conviction, Doreen Giuliano decided to go undercover. She hatched a plan to befriend a juror from her son’s trial and dig up incriminating evidence of juror misconduct in order to overturn the conviction. Mrs. Giuliano became Dee Quinn, a 30 year old professional from California who wore high heels, tight clothes and push up bras. She rented a new apartment, got a tan, lost weight, and dyed her hair blond in an effort to reinvent herself for her daring scheme.

After following two other jurors from the trial to no avail, she became acquainted with Jason Allo. She and Mr. Allo developed a 3 month relationship, which eventually culminated in Mrs. Giuliano hitting the jackpot: a recorded conversation where Mr. Allo admitted to knowing people on the witness list and having a grudge against the gang that Mrs. Giuliano’s son was allegedly involved with. All of these things would have made Mr. Allo unqualified to be a juror, which Mrs. Giuliano claims he even admits on tape. She further claims that Mr. Allo convinced the originally hesitant and skeptical jurors to find her son guilty, a charge Mr. Allo denies.

Will this work? Mrs. Giuliano claims she is looking for a fair trial, not to set her son free at any cost. Certainly, guilt and fairness in criminal justice are separate concerns. Legally a court can overturn a conviction for juror misconduct, but it does not have to. In fact, the convicted carries the heavy burden of proving that juror misconduct was bad enough to warrant overturning the conviction, something courts are loathe to do.

If the court does overturn the conviction, what kind of standard will this set for the future? Will jurors be a little more worried about finding someone guilty? Courts want jurors concentrating on the evidence, not on whether they will be stalked or harmed by those invested in the trial’s outcome. And how did Mrs. Giuliano obtain the private numbers and addresses and names of all the jurors sitting in her son’s trial? The privacy of jurors should be of utmost importance to the courts and to criminal justice in general. Although trials are public hearings, jurors are already scarce enough. Let’s not scare away more jurors from doing their civic duty.

If true, Mr. Allo’s deceit was wrong and unjust. In the end it is doubtful that Mrs. Giuliano’s sting operation will overturn the conviction, however. There were 11 other jurors who thought the defendant committed the crime.

Undercover Mother is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

Judge Sullivan’s reluctance to meddle with jury communications is understandable; after all, a mistrial could be declared if it were found that he exerted unfair influence over the jury.  Yet, if judges adopt overly lax attitudes and fail to remove problematic jurors, other problems can arise. 

For example, in the 1985 case Hernandez v. United States, a trial court for the Eastern District of New York failed to dismiss one juror when the others complained that she was mentally incompetent.  Although the court eventually dismissed the troublesome juror, it did so during deliberations in which she was the sole hold out; as a result, the Second Circuit reversed the trial court, stating that by delaying dismissal, the court created the improper appearance of dismissing to avoid a hung jury. 

During the course of trial, jurors can be dismissed for a variety of reasons, such as incompetence, illness, death, or death of a loved one.  Commonly, dismissal is based on a juror’s inability to remain fair and impartial.  For example, a juror’s impartiality can be tainted if he or she gains access to forbidden media coverage of the trial, even if that access was inadvertent.  In addition, according to the Second Circuit, jurors can be removed based on evidence that they intend to nullify the law.  

Traditionally, jurors have received limited instructions regarding deliberations.  Basically, they’re told: consider the evidence, talk with other jurors about it, but don’t change your opinion just to conform to others’ views or to reach a verdict. 

Are these minimal instructions sufficient though?  It seems to me that a juror could easily mistake dissatisfaction over another juror’s performance (i.e. incompetence) for a disagreement over evidence – an improper ground for dismissal.  

Defense lawyers commonly view tension among jurors as positive, as it ups the chances that they won’t reach a unanimous decision required for a guilty verdict.  Unfortunately for Stevens (and his superstar lawyer, Brendan Sullivan) his jurors, including the especially riotous one, agreed on at least one thing – the senator was guilty.

Jurors Gone Wild is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog