Jurors

The jury in the MySpace cyber-bullying case has reached verdicts on three of four counts against a Missouri woman accused of perpetrating a hoax on a teenage girl who later committed suicide. Jurors deliberated all day Monday before telling the judge just before 5 p.m. that they had reached verdicts on three counts but were split on the fourth. U.S. District Judge George H. Wu sent the jurors home and asked them to return this morning for further deliberations on the final count. He did not ask jurors which counts they had reached verdicts on. Lori Drew, 49, is charged with three counts of violating federal computer statutes and one count of conspiracy for allegedly creating a MySpace account in the name of a fictitious 16-year-old boy and using it to engage in an online relationship with 13-year-old Megan Meier.

Attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona told a judge Friday that they want the corruption case moved outside Southern California, and possibly farther, because two radio shock jocks are trying to taint the jury pool. In arguing for a change of venue, Brian A. Sun cited segments of KFI-AM (640) radio's "John and Ken Show," during which the hosts encouraged potential jurors to lie their way onto the panel and convict Carona.

A Los Angeles jury has convicted a 75-year-old woman of murdering a homeless man for millions in life insurance, but is deadlocked on two charges against her in a second killing. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley ordered the panel to resume deliberations Monday on the remaining counts against Olga Rutterschmidt. She was found guilty Thursday of the 2005 killing of Kenneth McDavid.

There's big trouble in the dollhouse. One of the jurors in the Barbie vs. Bratz trial -- in which toy giant Mattel Inc. already has scored a major victory over rival MGA Entertainment Inc. -- was removed Friday for making slurs about the ethnicity of Isaac Larian, the Iranian-born chief executive of MGA. A court order said the juror remarks characterized Iranians as "stubborn, rude" and as "thieves" who have "stolen other person's ideas."

At first brush, there was nothing about the 74-year-old beauty contest supplier from the Bible Belt bastion of Texarkana that inspired trial consultant Robert B. Hirschhorn to want her on his high-tech client's jury. The case involved patent rights, and it was Hirschhorn's job to identify jurors in the pool who might be receptive to the claim that a lucrative Internet dating service had copied his client's search engine accelerator without paying for it.

In the end, O.J. Simpson did himself in. Jurors who convicted the football great and his codefendant, Clarence Stewart, of 12 counts each said Sunday that hours of secret recordings convinced them that the men had robbed two memorabilia dealers at gunpoint last year. Though Simpson's attorneys, for example, said he never saw a weapon or asked anyone to bring one to a Palace Station hotel room, he was secretly taped afterward talking about "the piece."

Attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona revealed Tuesday that the government plans to present additional allegations against Carona during his upcoming corruption trial, and argued that they are entitled to the information before the trial later this month. Jeffrey Rawitz, one of Carona's attorneys, said the defense became aware of the allegations during pretrial discussions with prosecutors, and asked that details be turned over to them. Senior Assistant U.S. Atty.

Is Britney Spears a Californian or a Louisianan? Jurors confronted with that question at the pop star's trial for driving without a license spent about two hours deliberating Friday. The panelists are expected to return Monday to resume their discussions. If convicted of a misdemeanor, Spears, 26, faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The charge stems from an accident last year in which the performer struck a parked car.

A federal judge warned jurors at Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial Thursday to be courteous and respectful to each other after the panel's leader described "violent outbursts" that threatened to derail deliberations. And one juror apparently left town to tend to a sick relative. Before quitting for the day, 11 members of the 12-person jury asked U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss a female juror, describing her in a note as rude, disrespectful and unreasonable.

A federal judge Sunday dismissed one of the jurors in Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial because the court lost contact with the woman after her father's death. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan plans to seat an alternate juror today and order the jury to start its deliberations from the beginning, a setback for Stevens' attempt to get a verdict before Alaskans vote on his reelection bid Nov. 4.