Jurors

A San Bernardino County judge ordered an inquiry Thursday into allegations that a member of the jury that rejected the "Zoloft defense" of a former Westminster police detective who was convicted of rape failed to disclose that she had used the antidepressant. The defendant, Anthony Orban, claimed to have been in a drug-induced blackout caused by Zoloft when he abducted and sexually assaulted an Ontario Mills mall waitress in 2010. Orban's attorney, James Blatt of Los Angeles, told Superior Court Judge Shahla Sabet that after the verdict in late June one of the jurors contacted his office.

It's been nearly three years since Jane Laut shot and killed her husband, retired Olympic shot putter Dave Laut, in their Oxnard backyard. That point is undisputed. What jurors must decide is why, just before midnight on Aug. 27, 2009, a woman described as quiet and reserved pumped five bullets into Dave Laut, an Adonis who won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Laut's murder trial is set to begin Tuesday, although attorneys have indicated they may ask for a delay.

SAN JOSE — A patent-infringement trial pitting Apple Inc. against Samsung Electronics Co. kicked off Monday in federal court in San Jose with the selection of three women and seven men for the jury. Opening statements are expected Tuesday. Prospective jurors were grilled about whether they had friends who worked at Apple or other tech companies; the brands of their cellphones and tablet computers; and what books they had read concerning Apple or Samsung. The selection process took place in a fifth-floor courtroom in front of U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, with dozens of prospective jurors sitting in several rows of seats usually used by spectators.

For months, the identity of the boy who was sexually assaulted in the locker room showers by Jerry Sandusky was one of the biggest mysteries of the Penn State scandal. Now, for the first time, a man has come forward to claim he was that boy, and is threatening to sue the university. The man's lawyers said Thursday they have done an extensive investigation and gathered "overwhelming evidence" on details of the abuse by Sandusky, the former assistant football coach convicted of using his position at Penn State and as head of a youth charity to molest boys over a period of 15 years.

A Los Angeles jury on Friday spared the life of a man convicted of killing a 2-year-old boy, his mother and his nanny, finding that the man should instead receive life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2003 murders. The panel deliberated less than a day before deciding against the death penalty for Robin Kyu Cho, 53, who was convicted last week of three counts of murder for fatally shooting the three people in the family's Miracle Mile-area apartment. The gruesomeness of the murders, in which a toddler was shot and the 30-year-old mother was bound and gagged with packaging tape, shocked Los Angeles' large Korean community.

Powerful and convincing testimony from all eight victims was the fulcrum of the jury's decision to find former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, one juror said Saturday. "I didn't find anything -- that the way they spoke, the way they gave their testimony -- that they were lying," Joshua Harper said in an interview at his home in Boalsburg. "They were honestly telling us the truth. " Jurors, who were sequestered and deliberated for 21 hours, were careful and patient, Harper said.

As the verdict was read - guilty, guilty, guilty - Jerry Sandusky's emotionless expression was proof for jurors that they'd made the right decision. "The look on his face… no real emotion, just kind of accepting,” said juror Joshua Harper, a high school teacher in State College, Pa., in an interview with NBC . “You know, because he knew it was true.” Harper on Saturday morning became the first juror to speak publicly about the experience of the five men and seven women who effectively handed the 68-year-old former Penn State coach a sentence of life in prison.

Jurors weighing the fate of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky listened to fiery closing arguments and began deliberations Thursday, while outside their hearing one of Sandusky's sons said he too had been abused by his father. Almost 81/2 hours after deliberations began, jurors asked to rehear testimony about an alleged shower encounter between Sandusky and a boy of 10 or 12. Jurors wanted to revisit the testimony of Mike McQueary, who said he saw a sex act, and of McQueary's friend Dr. Jonathan Dranov, who described a less graphic version that he said McQueary told him in 2001.

The lead defense attorney representing Jerry Sandusky told reporters on Friday that it would be a shock if the former Penn State University assistant football coach were acquitted of all of the charges of sexually abusing children now being weighed by sequestered jurors. As the jury of seven women and five men ordered dinner and continued their deliberations well into the second day, defense attorney Joseph Amendola told reporters in the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., that he would “probably die of a heart attack” if Sandusky beat all of the charges, according to media reports from the courtroom.

The jury in the Jerry Sandusky case has reached a verdict that will be announced Friday evening, court officials announced. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated about 20 hours over two days before reaching the verdict on the charges against the former Penn State University football coach. Sandusky, 68, is charged with 48 counts of abusing 10 boys over 15 years. If convicted on all counts, he could face hundreds of years in prison. Earlier, Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's lawyer, told reporters that he would “die of a heart attack” if his client were acquitted on all counts.