JUROR SWILLING VODKA - VERDICT OK

Recently saw a blurb on the CNN.com news page that caught my eye. Seems a New York firefighter was on trial for theft of some 911 items from the WTC site. His case was tried to a jury and he was convicted. The defendant, Samuel Brandon, and his lawyer, Ronald Kliegerman, ran into a juror outside the courthouse after the verdict. The juror, Mr. John Anastas, described in the article as "visibly drunk" approached the defendant and offered to grab a beer with him. You know, one of those, "Hey, no hard feelings that I just convicted you of a crime" beers.

In any event, Kliegerman said he could smell booze on the juror. Somehow, the men found out that Anastas had apparently been drinking vodka and water from his water bottle during deliberations. Article didn't say how long deliberations were, but they were apparently long enough for Anastas.

Not suprisingly, Kliegerman immediately sought to have the verdict tossed on the grounds that one of six jurors wasn't as ah, focused as he should have been. Judge Ellen Coin however, refused to toss the verdict. She ruled that Anastas' conduct didn't amount to legal misconduct.
Although I haven't seen the judge's opinion, there is apparently caselaw that stands for the proposition that incoherent jurors aren't necessarily bad jurors. The article referred to a 1987 United States Supreme Court opinion where two Florida men were convicted of some sort of fraud charges, and after the verdict, defense counsel learned that several jurors were incoherent during the trial. There was evidence that some of the jurors were "giggly" and often slept through evidence. The Supreme Court however apparently held[don't have opinion so I am relying on the accuracy of CNN] that under the Federal Rules of Evidence, juror testimony won't impeach a verdict unless there was an outside influence on the jury. And the Supreme Court allegedly held that in the Florida case, juror intoxication wasn't enough of an outside influence to chuck the verdict. Huh?

You just gotta ask, what do you need to show outside influence? How about 12 packs of Bud in the jury box - that sufficent? Large plumes of smoke from the jury room coupled with giggling and Twinkie wrappers? I realize judges don't want to mess with jury verdicts, but give me a break. In subsequent hearings, several jurors testified that during deliberations Anastas was "annoying" and "unfocused". Yeah - cause he was shit-faced.

And, interestingly, the article pointed out that the ruling "...renewed the controversy surrounding drunk jurors". What controversy would that be? Is there a large group of lawyers/judges fighting to place more drunks on juries? There is no controversy. It's simple. Drunk people don't belong on juries. Cases like this just give those folks who want to eliminate jury trials altogether more ammo. Judge Coin should have thrown the verdict out and given this guy another trial with sober jurors.