What? “Retiree Found Guilty, Juror Found Tipsy, and Verdict Stands” – a 9/16/04 article – according to the NY Times article, written by Michael Wilson:
The jury’s verdict on March 2 was guilty: a retired firefighter convicted of stealing souvenirs while volunteering at ground zero. Six weeks later, his lawyers appealed, arguing not over the testimony at the trial, but over the jury that decided the verdict.
Specifically, the lawyers argued, Juror No. 4 was drunk. They said that after the guilty verdict, he approached the defendant, his brother, wife and lawyers, wobbly and glassy-eyed, to apologize for finding him guilty and telling him that he understood how difficult it must have been to work at the World Trade Center site. Someone smelled alcohol on his breath. [At a subsequent hearing, he testified that h]e had drained two-thirds of the bottle during deliberations, and after the verdict was read he took a last “big swig”[.]
Yesterday, Justice Ellen M. Coin of State Supreme Court in Manhattan issued her ruling: the verdict should stand.
The reason? There is apparently no law against drinking while serving as a juror and deliberating the fate of a fellow New Yorker.
Justice Coin ruled that Juror No. 4’s conduct fell far short of being considered misconduct, that it was not inappropriate enough to have altered the outcome of the case.
Prosecutors, pleased with their guilty verdicts against the firefighter, argued that there was no proof that Juror No. 4 was drunk while serving and found court rulings that said it would not have really mattered if he had been.
Umm. Well, I guess this one juror’s idiocy didn’t affect the verdict, but it doesn’t serve the appearance of justice. That’s just me.
I’ve been enjoying the Daisann McLane diary entries “Dispatches From Hong Kong” on Slate.com. Her entry on figuring out Cantonese was really amusing. Makes me feel good that maybe my issues with the mother tongue are justified…
I didn’t quite watch the Emmies last night. The orchestra kept cutting the speeches of the winners, which really annoyed me, so I turned to watching news instead. Lame. So lame to play the violins on speeches just to end at 11:01pm. This is how tv honors itself?
Lovely September days weather wise this week. Enjoy.