Undercover Mother

So your son has been convicted of murder. You believe he is innocent. Do you a) go over the options for appealing the ruling with his attorneys; b) approach you local innocence project or prisoner appeal legal clinic; or c) surreptitiously become involved with one of the jurors and record incriminating evidence of juror misconduct in order to seek a reversal of the conviction? If you did not answer C, shame on you!

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.