Jury Misconduct

The sentencing of a man convicted of murdering a Wells Fargo Bank employee was postponed Thursday because of evidence of jury misconduct. The misconduct apparently involved "three or four instances in which things were said in the jury room," prosecutor Lew Rosenblum said during Thursday's court hearing. Bill Charles Poynor, 52, was convicted in August of killing Robert T. Walsh during a robbery.

A federal judge late Monday denied Apple Inc.'s request for a permanent ban on 26 Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones that a jury had found infringed on Apple patents for the iPhone and the iPad. But U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh also rejected Samsung's motion for a new trial based on jury misconduct. The rulings were part of a series of decisions Koh has been making on motions both sides have brought since Apple won a $1-billion jury verdict last summer. PHOTOS: Devices in the Apple Samsung trial Koh noted that the infringing technology amounted to a small portion of the Samsung products' functionality.

Ford Motor Co. said "serious" jury misconduct led to a $295-million verdict against the world's No. 2 auto maker in July, in a California case involving a 1993 Bronco accident that killed three people. Ford raised the misconduct allegations Wednesday in court papers asking for a new trial.

A 26-year-old rape victim stood before a subdued San Bernardino County courtroom Friday, and read a carefully drafted statement addressed to the former Westminster police detective who kidnapped and raped her two years earlier. "I forgive you," she said, choking up. But Anthony Orban, 33, was not there. Hours before, at 2:49 a.m., Orban was found unresponsive in his cell at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said. He was declared dead at the scene.

The phrase "jury misconduct" evokes an image of bribing or threatening a juror. But most of the time it comes down to something much more commonplace, such as a juror's uncontrollable compulsion to talk about the case, or getting the nutty notion of conducting a free-lance investigation of the crime. We don't know the specifics of the misconduct allegation in the O.J. Simpson double murder case. All we do know is that Deputy Dist. Atty.

The attorney for a Santa Rosa Valley woman convicted last year of murdering her three young sons has requested a new trial based on claims of juror misconduct. Socorro Caro, 44, faces the death penalty during her sentencing next week. After convicting Caro in November, the same jury recommended that she be executed. Superior Court Judge Donald D.

A Superior Court judge, acknowledging that his ruling was "likely to cause extreme community revulsion," cited jury misconduct Thursday as he threw out the murder conviction and death-penalty verdict of a confessed child killer. Richard Lucio DeHoyos, a 34-year-old drifter from Texas, was convicted last October of kidnaping, sexually assaulting and killing a fourth-grader as she was on her way home from school in Santa Ana.

Drifter Richard Lucio DeHoyos was convicted Monday of kidnaping, raping and murdering a 9-year-old Santa Ana girl whom he lured into his car by posing as a schoolteacher. The verdict marked the second time an Orange County Superior Court jury has found DeHoyos, 35, guilty of the March 20, 1989, slaying of Nadia Puente, whose body was found stuffed in a garbage can in Los Angeles' Griffith Park.

Alleging jury misconduct, lawyers for a wealthy Mexican businessman convicted earlier this week of conspiring to kidnap and murder U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena asked a federal court judge in Los Angeles Friday to declare a mistrial in his case. The motion, filed on behalf of defendant Ruben Zuno Arce, contends that jurors in the politically sensitive trial discussed among themselves information about the case that was not placed in evidence.

A Clovis biochemist convicted of killing her estranged husband by stuffing him in a vat of acid won't be sentenced for at least two months while defense attorneys probe possible jury misconduct. Attorneys for Larissa Schuster, 47, plan to ask local media outlets to provide the Internet addresses of people who visited their websites to see if jurors had read news stories online during the trial. Schuster was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in a Fresno County court for first-degree murder in the death of her husband, Timothy Schuster.

After three hours' deliberations, a jury on Wednesday gave a life sentence rather than the death penalty to Jesse James Hollywood, the former marijuana dealer convicted last week in the slaying of a 15-year-old West Hills boy. Found guilty of kidnapping and first-degree murder, Hollywood, 29, was portrayed by prosecutors as the ringleader of a convoluted plot to avenge a $1,200 drug debt owed by Nicholas Markowitz's older half brother.

A Los Angeles County judge upheld the sexual assault conviction of Beverly Hills fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander on Monday, ruling that a juror's contact with the defendant's sister before the verdicts did not prevent a fair trial.

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.

The Barbie vs. Bratz fight in federal court will go on. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside on Monday denied a motion to declare a mistrial sought by the maker of the lucrative Bratz doll, MGA Entertainment Inc., because of a juror's ethnic slur. The jury already had found that MGA and its chief executive, Iranian-born Isaac Larian, had improperly aided a Mattel Inc. Barbie designer who created the concept in violation of his Mattel contract.

An Australian judge halted a drug conspiracy trial after some jurors were found to have been working Sudoku puzzles while evidence was being presented. Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra ended the trial for two men facing a possible life sentence for drug conspiracy charges. The trial had been running for 66 days and had cost taxpayers an estimated $950,000. It had been assumed that the jurors were taking notes. But the judge was alerted after they were observed writing vertically, rather than horizontally.

A Clovis biochemist convicted of killing her estranged husband by stuffing him in a vat of acid won't be sentenced for at least two months while defense attorneys probe possible jury misconduct. Attorneys for Larissa Schuster, 47, plan to ask local media outlets to provide the Internet addresses of people who visited their websites to see if jurors had read news stories online during the trial. Schuster was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in a Fresno County court for first-degree murder in the death of her husband, Timothy Schuster.

Defense attorneys representing a man convicted of cocaine trafficking with former Ram cornerback Darryl Henley met behind closed doors Monday with a federal judge who has initiated an investigation into alleged jury tampering in the case. The session came amid new allegations from two jurors that a third had discussed the case before deliberations and was predisposed to convict Henley and his co-defendants from the outset of the trial because of their race.

Arguing that a letter from a juror suggests jury misconduct, defense attorneys for four Conejo Valley youths began laying the groundwork Monday to appeal murder convictions that carry life sentences for the four teenagers. Citing the letter sent one day after the verdict was reached, attorney Jill Lansing asked a judge to release the names and addresses of jury members to allow a probe into possible improprieties. Judge Lawrence J.

Robert Blake, the actor acquitted of his wife's murder, should not have to pay her survivors a $30-million civil court award because he did not get a fair trial, his lawyers told appellate judges Tuesday. "All we asked for was a fair trial, and it wasn't," M. Gerald Schwartzbach argued to the state 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles. "Celebrities have the same rights as anybody else. . . . Mr. Blake was denied that." Attorney Eric J.

A Superior Court judge has ordered a new trial for a black firefighter who sued the city after alleging he suffered harassment and discrimination in the Los Angeles Fire Department. The suit by Jabari Jumaane was rejected by a jury in June after it deliberated for two days. But after receiving a declaration from a juror, Judge Mel Recana on Monday ordered a new trial "because of juror misconduct," court records show.