Scrushy Attorneys Demand New Trial Due to Jury Misconduct
July 19th, 2007by Glynn Wilson
Attorneys for former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy have filed a motion demanding a new trial on the basis of juror misconduct with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
Attorneys for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman have not filed their paperwork in the appeal as of yet for reasons that are unclear.
In the motion for a new trial and to preserve documents filed this week by attorney Art Leach, a number of e-mail messages and news articles about the e-mail messages are included as exhibits. The bottom line is that if the e-mails are not forgeries, and there is no evidence or indication that they are, then jurors in the Siegelman-Scrushy trial in Montgomery violated the standard jury charge demanding that they not read news media coverage of the case or discuss the case amongst themselves outside the jury room.
In one message included in the text of the motion, one juror says, “I was confused between all the evidence and other Internet stuff and information that some jurors brought in and was talking about… They were pulling stuff out of files and some were talking about have Internet information and talking about that too.”
Evidence is presented that at least two jurors admitted searching the World Wide Web for information on the case in the news media online, and tried to use that information to pressure other jurors to come to a guilty verdict on that basis - not on the basis of evidence presented at trial.
The motion asks Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller to hold a hearing and examine the jurors under oath about their online media consumption and discussing the case via e-mail. It asks that all juror computers be preserved as evidence to prevent the destruction of documents and that jurors provide all of their e-mail addresses and IP addresses to the court.
According to the motion, the judge was in error when he “never asked a single juror if he/she received or sent any of the e-mails as they appeared” in the exhibits presented at trial.
Some of the information apparently accessed by jurors included a transcript of a WSFA TV Courtroom Chronicles blog that included evidence presented before the judge when the jury was ordered out of the courtroom - which would in and of itself create prejudice on the part of the jury, according to legal experts.
Attorneys argue in the motion that this is one of those rare cases where documentary evidence could readily, and conclusively, resolve an otherwise complicated, difficult, legal issue.
“Here, if the purported e-mails are authenticated, then it is apparent that the jury was exposed to extrinsic evidence that was prejudicial to (the defendants) and that (they are) entitled to a new trial,” the motion reads.
It accuses the judge in this case of “failing to conduct a meaningful investigation” into the alleged juror misconduct, which would be sufficient grounds for a new trial on appeal.
According to well-established precedent in the U.S. justice system, there is a long-standing requirement that a jury’s verdict must be based on the “evidence developed at trial” and that principle “goes to the fundamental integrity of all that is embraced in the constitutional concept of trial by jury.”
The government in this case has a legal and moral obligation to determine whether the verdict was “tainted.”
Also set out in the motion is the unambiguous obligation of a U.S. attorney “that he is the representative of a government dedicated to fairness and equal justice for all and, in this respect, he owes a heavy obligation of fairness to the accused.”
It does not appear that this was the case here, and according to legal experts, an order for a new trial is warranted.
July 21st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
This trial should have been a mistrial to begin with! All the things that the jury did was grounds for a new trial! But of course, if you’re a judge who is a Republican and the jury is predominately Republican then this verdict is no surprise!