Friday, April 27, 2018

New Trial Granted Due to Racially-Biased Comments by One Juror in Minnesota Federal Trial

Deja Vu: Facebooking Jurors Cause a Reversal of a Murder Conviction

This time it's in Iowa.  A murder conviction was reversed by the appellate court due to prejudice to the defendant from contacts on Facebook some of the jurors had both before and during deliberations. Pre-deliberations one juror discovered that one of the defendant's relatives was her Facebook friend.  During deliberations a juror shared that on Facebook there were posts about rumors that there would be a riot or violence if the defendant was not found guilty of something.
LINK: https://cdn.radioiowa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christensen-opinion-PDF.pdf

Friday, April 20, 2018