Juror Brings Newspaper into Deliberations: Found in Contempt and Jailed

http://www.morningjournal.com/general-news/20170628/lorain-county-juror-sentenced-to-30-days-in-jail-for-contempt

Allowing Any Device in the Jury Deliberation Room Is a Bad Idea

In the Arizona case linked below the trial court allowed a court laptop in the deliberation room for the jury to review certain evidence admitted at trial.  Unfortunately there was a "witness interviews" disk also in the laptop disk drive, evidence not admitted at trial.  The jurors saw the disk but did not view it and contacted the bailiff immediately.  No mistrial was ordered by the trial court and this decision was affirmed.  No harm, no foul.  Still a very bad idea.  I am only familiar with MN procedure where this would not have been allowed.


http://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/OpinionFiles/Div1/2017/1%20CA-CR%2016-0240.pdf

Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Remands for Evidentiary Hearing of Issue of Juror's Blogging During Trial Deliberations

A defendant was indicted for wire fraud, however for 2.5 years prior to that the civil litigation against him was the subject of hundreds of comments in a blog, some of which were inflammatory.  Immediately after the verdict of guilty the government lawyers informed defense counsel of blog-post comments from the night before the verdict authored by an anonymous person claiming to have been a juror (#8) in the trial.  See page 10 of the opinion linked below for the juror's posting. 


The court interviewed the juror (#8) and she denied seeing the blog mentioned above or discussing it with other jurors.. The court declined to interview any other jurors.  This was followed by still other posts from alleged jurors about #8's comments.  The trial court declined motions for reconsideration and new trial.  The appeal followed.




The Court of Appeals has remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing.  The moral here:  TRIAL JUDGES MUST THOROUGHLY INQUIRE INTO ALLEGED MISCONDUCT BY JURORS DURING DELIBERATIONS.



U.S. v. Zimny:     http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/15-2144/15-2144-2017-01-24.pdf?ts=1485284403