| Judge removes juror from Scott Peterson's murder trial November 9, 2004 Jurors who have been weighing capital murder charges against Scott Peterson for five days were ordered Tuesday afternoon to start from scratch after a panelist was removed from the jury and replaced with an alternate. Judge Alfred Delucchi did not give a specific reason for the removal of the woman, Juror 7, but indicated in his instructions to the remaining jurors that the dismissed juror may have violated court rules by trying to investigate the case on her own. "You must decide all questions of fact in this case from the evidence received in this trial and not from any other source," the judge added after reading jurors the standard, state-approved jury instructions given to deliberating jurors when one of their number is dismissed. The extra sentence is part of the an official instruction entitled "Juror Forbidden To Make Any Independent Investigation." While that instruction is delivered to all juries before they begin deliberating, it is not normally read again when a panelist is dismissed. The dismissal came just a day after Delucchi hauled the entire panel into open court and reminded them of their obligation to deliberate in good faith. At the close of that reinstruction Monday morning, the six men and six women filed out past Peterson at the defense table and only Juror 7, a middle-aged Asian woman, looked at him. The dismissed panelist, who works for a power company, was not in court at 2:15 p.m. when the judge made his announcement. He told the first alternate, a younger woman who gave up her bank job and salary to serve on the panel, to fill her seat. "You shall now retire to begin again your deliberations in accordance with all instructions previously given," Delucchi told the jurors, who looked tired and grim. His order means they will set aside 32 hours of deliberations. Delucchi dismissed them, saying, "We're going to send you back to start all over again, so keep in touch." Peterson sat stone-faced through the short hearing. His parents, sister and sister-in-law came to court for the first time since deliberations began last Wednesday for the hearing. An aunt and uncle of his slain wife, Laci — Susan and Gil Aquino — were also on hand. The dismissed juror showed little emotion during the five months of testimony, but in jury selection last spring, she said she had followed the high-profile case "moderately" and felt nothing reported in the media explained why the Modesto fertilizer salesman would kill his pregnant wife and unborn son. "I haven't seen anything about a motive that would tell me that he would have done something that heinous," she said. She also told lawyers that she was a "crusader" who would never buckle under peer pressure in the jury room. The jurors must decide whether Peterson is guilty of first- or second-degree murder in the deaths of his wife and son, or if he should be acquitted altogether. The 27- year-old mother-to-be was last seen alive in Modesto Dec. 23, 2002. Her husband of five years maintains she vanished while he was fishing on the San Francisco Bay. 'Strawberry Shortcake' in It is unclear what type of independent investigation the juror might have done or when she would have done it. The sequestration of the panel, which began Nov. 3, the final day of summations, would seem to prevent a juror from engaging in personal sleuthing during deliberations. Panelists stay at a local hotel where they are guarded round-the-clock by a cadre of court officers. If the juror made her own investigation during the course of the trial, she may have revealed her findings during heated discussions in the jury room. Another panelist could report such a violation to the judge. "If it was an Internet search, for example, it would have to predate sequestration, because they're not allowed Internet access," said California criminal defense attorney Paula Canny, referring to one of the many limitations on jurors while sequestered. Canny, who once worked on a case in which a juror was dismissed for having performed his own research before deliberations, noted that the specific reinstruction in the Peterson case could be a strong indicator of what took place Tuesday in the judge's chambers. "[Delucchi] sat down with both the prosecution and the defense and he had to decide what he was going to say, and I'm sure there was some discussion about how he would approach it," Canny said. "He would not say something like that for no reason." Former Seattle prosecutor Anne Bremner said that the judge's instruction Tuesday "probably means that [Juror 7] imparted some evidence to other jurors. It doesn't necessarily mean that the juror gave the other jurors outside info, but the chances are pretty high." In particular, Bremner noted, jurors often have a strong desire to visit the scene of the crime and have to be specifically warned against it. The chosen alternate, a white woman in her 30s, stands out on the jury both in appearance and in what she was willing to sacrifice to serve on the jury. Her hair, which falls halfway down her back, alternated between brick red, orange and cherry during the course of the trial. The tall, thin woman has nine tattoos and favors large, eye-catching earrings, flamboyant pink clothes and 3-inch heels. She is known to trial watchers as "Strawberry Shortcake." The judge and both sides were ready to excuse her during jury selection because her employer only pays for two weeks of jury service, but she said her significant other was willing to "carry the load." A surprised Delucchi said, "You want to sit here for five months without getting paid? If you want to, that's fine." Her brother spent time for drug offenses in San Quentin, the state prison where Peterson would be sent if sentenced to death. She said during jury selection that she briefly considered a career as a lawyer and is still known to colleagues as a world-class debater who never lets go of a point. HOME INDEX LACI CONNER SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST EVIDENCE PHOTOS WIRETAPS CEMENT SCOTT'S CAR |
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| "LACI & CONNER are together now and will watch over you until you meet again...." CLA ~ Tulsa, OK ~ GUESTBOOK |
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