Recently in Jury Deliberation Category

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39726149/ns/us_news-security/

This article was published on msnbc.com by Associated Press on October 18, 2010.  The FBI were involved in this investigation (mainly because it has to do with threats of bombing).


"The trial featured 13 days of testimony by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City. Prosecutors also relied on hundreds of hours of video and audiotape of the men discussing the scheme at the informant's home, handling fake weapons -- even praying together."

"Jurors deliberated for more than a week. A judge denied a request for a mistrial last week after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder that shouldn't have been there. The juror was dismissed."


What are the processes that the jury went through?

Do you think it was fair that the judge denied a request for a mistrial after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder?

What would you have done if you were that Judge and presented with that dilemma?

 

The case I'm going to discuss is several years old but I found it very interesting and relevant to psychology and law. In 1992, a hunter found the body of a decomposing woman while hunting. After the police found out that the dead woman had been a prostitute, it led them to believe that a possible suspect was Thomas Huskey, a man known for bringing woman to the area. Huskey had a reputation for taking women, tying them up behind the zoo, beating them, and then having sex with them.

About a week after the first body was found, police searching the area found three more dead women. Huskey was arrested and confessed, on tape, to all four murders. During the confession, Huskey changed his voice and expressions and said that he was now "Kyle". Apparently, "Kyle" was the one who killed the women, not Thomas. After "Kyle" emerged, "Philip Daxx", a British man, surfaced. This lead investigators to believe that Huskey had multiple personality disorder.

After 6 years had passed, the trial finally began. Huskey plead not guilty by insanity. The defense psychologist said that Huskey suffered from multiple personality disorder, however, the prosecution psychologist said that Huskey simply created these personalities to manipulate the court. During the course of the trial, the cellmate of Huskey, testified that Huskey had read Sybil and was going to try to make it seem like he had multiple personality disorder to avoid the death penalty. Huskey's mother also agreed that he did not have this disorder. To further the case against Huskey, the prosecution noted that he gave specific details about the crime while he was Tom but if he really did have multiple personality disorder, he would have no recollection of these memories, since they belong to "Kyle".

After the jury deliberated for quite some time, they still had not come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial. Huskey was to be tried again in 2002 but he asked for a lawyer during his confession, which was then ruled inadmissible. Huskey is currently in prison for 44 years for previous rape charges.

On another website, I found that the murder charges against Huskey were dropped due to detective errors. He is still in jail for the rape charges mentioned earlier.

Psychology is obviously present here. Because multiple personality disorder is so rare, it probably wasn't Huskey's  best idea to pretend he had it. Any personality disorder is severe and it's likely that Huskey may have had some other form of one. Although he wasn't proven guilty, it seems pretty possible that he did commit the four murders. I'm glad that he's at least in jail for the rape crimes he committed so that he can't go out and murder more innocent women.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/index.html 

After reading through many of the blog posts on jury selection and jury duty I found a link on Luke's post "It's Your Duty" describing ways to avoid jury duty.  At the top of the list were the words "jury nullification" which linked to another website that I now have bookmarked and find absolutely amazing.

            http://fija.org/  This organization known as the Fully Informed Jury Association has a wealth of information that is very helpful to jurors, and anyone else interested in researching information relating to jury selection and duties.  On their homepage they offer a critical reminder of the true function of all jurors:

            "The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by the government.  The Constitution guarantees you the right to trial by jury.  This means that government must bring its case before a jury of The People if government wants to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property.  Jurors can say no to government tyranny by refusing to convict."

http://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=126827936072322200
This article is about a man who was convicted of murdering a woman and her two sons on account of revenge. He found out that his wife was having an affair with another man and was pregnant with the other man's child. Serrano was upset and went to the other man's house to get him, but found his wife, 37, and his two sons who were 15 and 12. Serrano shot all three of them. The jury of 8 women and 4 men were to decide if Ricardo Serrano was to spend life in prison without parole or have the death penatly.

I found this disturbing because everyone on the defense side was trying to make it sound like Serrano was a good man. I understand that it is their job to defend the accused, but a good man doesn't go and shoot people out of revenge.
I also found another article that talks about the decision that the jury made and about how Serrano's wife wants to testify against him.
http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2008/08/murder_suspect_wants_to_preven.html

While looking for things to post concerning juries, I found this article discussing how important the role of the juror is in deciding whether someone is sentenced the death penalty. The authors, Raoul Cantero and Robert Kline, discussed how there are two phases the jury goes for: the trial phase and the penalty phase. The trial phase is when the jury decides if the defendant is guilty or innocent of a capital crime. If the defendant is found guilty, the jury must go through the penalty phase to decide if the defendant deserves the death penalty. Thinking about the reality of this situation, the jury must carefully be selected. It would be a very hard task to decide that someone does not deserve the right to live. Psychologically, the jury must be strong mentally and emotionally to be able to handle this. For the defendant, it would be hard to handle that they will be dying. Both sides are affected greatly which is why the death penalty is not legal in all states. The article I was looking at mostly focused on Florida because they're the only state that only requires a simple majority to rule in favor of the death penalty. Below are the links where I found this information at.


Full article
 Introduction to article

This article points out the problems that are associated with jury deliberation and the unfortunate "hung jury." After becoming familiar with the fact that a few cases are retried because the jury members are unable to come to an agreed upon decision I decided to investigate more into it.  The first recorded time a mistrial occured because a jury could not come to an agreement occured in 1807, and ever since then researchers and scholars have worked to improve the system.  This article dives into the problems of coercing a jury to reach a verdict, and the history behind coercion of juries. The psychological part of coercion is the fact that persuasion is playing a role and may change others motivations.  It definitely deals with social psychology and how people react to those in power like a judge for example.  During a trial usually emotions run high for anyone involved.  That is why this article explains the negative aspects of conducting a mistrial.  That means that everything will have to be done over again.  Eye witnesses may have to testify again and bring themselves to cope with emotional memories.  The article then moves on to explain the history of unanimous votes by jury members and why the legal system requires unaniminity.  It would be wise for those of you who are interested in the deliberation process to read this.  Also because it answers the questions of how and why juries reach a verdict and how and why juries sometimes do not reach a verdict.  To me juries are an intriguing group to study because psychologically it is interesting how people's decisions change due to group influences.

http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/97-1/Bove.PDF

 

I found this article interesting because it kind of shows what goes through a juror's head when trying to figure out if a person is guilty or innocent.  This juror was involved in the Mark Becker case.  Mark Becker was accused of murdering Ed Thomas of Parkersburg.   The juror talked about how the jury debated over five days whether or not Becker was not sane at the time of the murder.  He said how everyone had their opinions on the case and that eventually the evidence showed no proof that Becker was insane.  Becker was then charged with first degree murder.

http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=12079656

As we all know Parkersburg, Iowa and the whole state of Iowa suffered a tremendous loss, Ed Thomas. Mr. Thomas was the high school football coach, track coach, teacher, driving instructor, and most of all a father, husband, and grandfather.

The trial for Mark Becker is in some of its last states. The jury has been in deliberation for over 8 hours now. They will either find of him guilty of 1st degree murder with life in prison without parole, or they will find him guilty, but categorize him as insane and Becker will undergo dramatic psychiatric evaluations.

This is a trial that is using the Insanity Plea, which is very unheard of for today. It is hard to prove someone legally insane, because you have to prove to everyone that before the crime, the time of the crime, and after the crime, that Mark Becker had no idea what was going on and it was out of his control. I want to make it clear that insanity is a legal term when used in law, not a medical term. Insanity is when they try to see if Mark Becker knew what he was doing, and if he knew right from wrong throughout the whole process of the crime.

This is going to be a hard case to defend based on the facts. Mark Becker did plan out this murder. He dressed so that he could hide a gun in his clothing. He drove himself to the high school and admitted to being scared that he would be pulled over with a loaded gun on him. These are just a few things that push away from the insanity plea.

Below is the Des Moines Register, which has been following the trial very closely. On the left side bar is over 15 blogs that take you through the trial, even a blog just recently posted about the juror's deliberation. In the middle of the web page will a section also taking you through the trial in detail.

I urge everyone to go through theses blogs and really see what it is like for the people of the court system. They have an expert witness, a Psychiatrist that the prosecution hired and his diagnosis and thoughts are very interesting to read.

http://dmjuice.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100225/NEWS01/2250354/1001/NEWS