Juror

Re "Juror Dismissed From Case for Using Legal Dictionary," Feb. 2. Why would a judge dismiss a juror for taking the initiative to understand his or her responsibilities better? It appears to be a case of dumbing down our legal process. Only unsophisticated jurors need apply, to be at the mercy of the trial lawyers. To have some understanding of our legal system is grounds for immediate dismissal. DONALD E. BING, Moorpark

GREENSBORO, N.C. — For a fourth day Wednesday, the jury in the John Edwards trial deliberated without reaching a verdict in a case focused on an illicit affair and federal campaign finance laws. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards violated election laws when payments from two wealthy donors were used to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during Edwards' failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors contend that Edwards solicited $925,000 in illegal contributions from the donors in order to hide the affair and keep his campaign from collapsing in scandal.

A juror in Gov. Edwin W. Edwards' second federal trial on racketeering charges was dismissed Friday after authorities discovered that he had been arrested on a charge of criminal neglect of family. He was replaced by an alternate.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A third day of jury deliberations in the campaign finance trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards passed without a verdict Tuesday, with the jurors due back in federal court Wednesday morning. The jury of eight men and four women requested two more prosecution exhibits, bringing to more than a dozen the number of exhibits sought by jurors since deliberations began Friday. The documents requested Tuesday were letters to or about Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, now 101, a billionaire heiress and Edwards supporter who gave $725,000 that was used to help hide the candidate's mistress during his failed campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

For those who condemned Richard Ramirez to die, the most difficult moment in their long ordeal came on a muggy morning in mid-August, when the judge ordered them to resume deliberations. It was only two days after fellow juror Phyllis Singletary had been murdered by her boyfriend and only a day after a distraught alternate was picked as her replacement. Inside the jury room, there was total silence. "It was traumatic. We were all in shock," recalled juror Donald G. McGee.

A question from the jury in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial indicates that a conflict has arisen between at least two members of the panel. The question sent to Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk in two different versions Friday suggests that one juror has accused another of not deliberating. The panel wanted to know if a juror can be accused of not deliberating after he or she has reached a decision based on jury instructions and stated a reason for that decision "numerous times."

Over lunch, she saw a toddler in a car seat. It was a moment unremarkable in every respect--but it was enough to tilt a juror toward recommending that Socorro Caro be executed for killing three of her young sons. The juror, who asked not to be identified, said she was among several on the panel who were not set on choosing the death penalty at the outset of deliberations Friday. By late Monday morning, she was the only one not convinced that justice would be best served with a lethal injection.

I was called to serve as a juror in Pomona Superior Court and was selected to serve on the case of People vs. Robert Edward Stansbury. He is the ice cream vendor who kidnaped 10-year-old Robyn Leigh Jackson in Baldwin Park in September, 1982. He then raped her, placed her body in the freezer of his ice cream truck and kept her there until he could dump the body in a flood control chanel in Pasadena. The prosecution, led very well by Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Burns, brought witnesses before the jury to convince us that Stansbury indeed was guilty.

A juror in a rape trial who tried to bolt from a Van Nuys courtroom Tuesday during the playing of a sexually explicit home videotape was excused from the case Thursday. Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann replaced the woman with an alternate in the trial of Edward J. Riley, 34, an immigration agent accused of raping or attempting to rape seven Latina women, either by threatening them with his service revolver or saying he would deport them if they resisted.

Re "Sleepy Juror Gets Rude Awakening," April 20: Maybe Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Veals needs to spend some time in the jury waiting room to see how his senses would react to the monotony. Any fine for a yawn or bodily function is reprehensible, and then to admonish the juror for making a statement outrages any normal thinker. It just shows that the judge was attempting to hide some very contemptible behavior on his part. John Julis Bellflower It is appalling what Veals did to the juror who yawned loudly in court.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal jury in the political corruption trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards deliberated for a second day Monday without reaching a verdict, as Edwards quietly awaited his fate inside a federal courthouse. The jury of eight men and four women requested seven prosecution exhibits. Among them were emails in 2006 and 2007 that discussed $725,000 provided to Edwards by wealthy heiress and supporter Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, now 101, during Edwards' campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The jurors who will decide the fate of former presidential candidate John Edwards deliberated for more than four hours Friday before breaking for the weekend in a trial focused on complex campaign finance laws and lurid details of Edwards' extramarital affair. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards knowingly conspired to violate federal election laws as part of a scheme to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

His mother said a quiet prayer of thanks. His father dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. Four years after Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw II's death, the gang member accused of gunning him down because he was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder. Jurors deliberated for barely half a day before returning the guilty verdict against Pedro Espinoza, now 23. The panel found to be true allegations that Espinoza committed the crime in association with a gang and that he personally discharged a firearm.

Alan Jackson is, at 46, the youngest of the six candidates for Los Angeles County district attorney. But he's tried his share of high-profile cases, including the successful prosecution of music icon Phil Spector, and that in turn has helped to elevate his profile. For name recognition he can't match Los Angeles City Atty.  Carmen Trutanich, and some voters may still confuse him with the country music star of the same name, but Jackson has worked hard to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack.

Jurors deciding whetherGoogle Inc.stole Oracle Inc.'s technology are deadlocked on one of three questions about whether the search engine provider infringed copyrights to build Android software. U.S. Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, presiding over an intellectual property trial in its third week, sent the jurors home Friday and ordered them to return Monday for more deliberations. Alsup had said he would accept a partial verdict Friday and changed his plan after talking privately with Oracle's and Google's lawyers.

Moving swiftly after a judge dismissed his case Thursday morning, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley six hours later refiled 24 perjury and voter fraud charges against Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon. The new charges, which accuse the Alarcons of lying about living in a house in Panorama City so that the councilman could run for his 7th District seat, mirror the allegations in the grand jury indictment thrown out by Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy, who was ruling on a defense motion.

A juror in a murder case in Cincinnati was sent to jail for seven days for going on vacation to Mexico in the middle of deliberations. Christine Fiorini, 33, failed to show up after the long Presidents Day weekend, and a warrant was issued for her arrest. Deliberations were put on hold for a week while court officials tried to track her down. Fiorini surfaced Monday and was taken before the judge presiding over the trial.

Jury deliberations in the trial of former White House aide Oliver L. North were briefly interrupted Monday by the illness of a juror who suffers from high blood pressure, but the problem was not seen as threatening continuation of the proceedings. In response to a note from the jury, U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell gave permission for Jean Johnson, 53, to be examined by a doctor in the presence of a federal marshal. Johnson, who initially was examined by a nurse summoned to the jury room, had a blood pressure reading of 160 over 98, considered high but not a severe or imminent risk to health, officials said.

The trial of a former Oakland Raiders defensive end accused of murder ended in a mistrial Wednesday when jurors failed to reach agreement on a verdict, according to authorities. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carlos A. Chung terminated the trial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict on whether Anthony Wayne Smith was involved in the killing of 31-year-old mechanic Maurilio Ponce on Oct. 7, 2008. The jury, which deliberated for nine days, split 8 to 4 for a guilty verdict, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Jury selection begins Thursday in the federal election corruption trial of former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, who is accused of conspiring to violate campaign laws, accepting illegal contributions and making false statements. Edwards, 58, a 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, made millions in courtrooms as a personal injury lawyer in North Carolina. Now he faces a 30-year prison sentence and up to $1.5 million in fines if convicted on all six federal counts against him. The government has accused Edwards of using nearly $1 million in donations from two wealthy benefactors to hide an extramarital affair during his unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president.  Prosecutors say Edwards solicited the money to cover up his affair with Rielle Hunter, a campaign videographer who was pregnant with Edwards' child.