Jury Trial

Six former Kmart Corp. executives, who were accused in a lawsuit of contributing to the discounter's bankruptcy filing, won't have to face a jury trial, a Michigan judge ruled. Oakland County Circuit Judge Rudy Nichols ordered the matter to binding arbitration, finding that the executives' employment contracts barred a trial by jury.

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said Tuesday that the American legal system may require major reforms, including the elimination of the traditional jury trial for complex financial disputes, multiple-disaster claims and even routine auto accident cases. "For some disputes, trials will always be the only means, but for many claims, we do not need trials by the adversary contest," Burger said in a speech before the American Law Institute.

Two federal appellate court judges acted promptly Monday to end a moratorium on the start of any new civil lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles because of a lack of money to pay jurors. U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Warren Ferguson granted an emergency stay sought by a Westwood attorney whose firm represents clients in nine civil rights cases filed against police and sheriff's departments in Southern California. The two judges directed the U.S.

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that sex-show operators and others are entitled to a jury trial to contest charges of permitting lewd acts and prostitution in violation of a court order. The justices struck down the six-month jail terms and $62,000 in fines facing James and Artie Mitchell of San Francisco in a contempt proceeding brought without a jury under the state Red Light Abatement Law. The court, in a lead opinion by Justice David N.

As accused murderer Daniel Allen Tuffree formally waived his rights to a second jury trial Friday, the sister of the Simi Valley police officer he shot expressed anger that the former Chatsworth High School teacher is no longer facing the death penalty. "People need to take responsibility for their actions," said Meredith Clark, 27, standing in the courthouse hallway. "He decided to kill a human being," she added, fighting tears. "He decided to kill my brother."

Twenty-two homeless people arrested in a controversial police sweep of the downtown Civic Center area are a step closer to a jury trial after their attorney rejected the city's offer to have them plead guilty and pay fines or serve up to a day in jail. "I think there would have been a revolt among us if he would have accepted that," said Sharen Valentine, one of the homeless who gathered Friday for a pretrial hearing in Municipal Court.

After losing on two key motions in pretrial arguments Friday, William Masters, who in January shot and killed a graffiti tagger who he said threatened him, waived his right to a jury trial. Masters, who is charged with carrying a concealed and loaded weapon but not with murder or manslaughter, had asked that the charges against him be dismissed on the grounds that California's concealed weapons law is unconstitutional.

In an unusual trend, prosecutors are refusing to allow Ventura County judges to decide some of their most serious criminal cases because prosecutors believe that they have a better chance of conviction with the county's conservative jurors, several top trial attorneys said. Judges have infuriated prosecutors in recent months by either acquitting murder defendants or convicting them on the least serious homicide charge.

I've covered nearly every high-profile trial in this nation, including the speedy acquittals and speedy convictions of many famous defendants, but never have I seen anything like what the O.J. Simpson jury did Tuesday. It's not what the Simpson jury said; it was how the jury said it. "Not guilty, not guilty" were their verdicts and it was their right to bring them.

Conceding that a North Hills man was insane when he stole nearly $1 million from nine San Fernando Valley banks, federal prosecutors announced Monday that they will accept a defense plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Gilbert Michaels, 51, had been scheduled to stand trial March 8 in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles.