Jury

Though Timothy Lynch's Jan. 24 commentary, "We All Lose When Judges Overreach," is accurate, such brevity bypasses what may be a greater threat to our venerable jury system. I was elected foreman of a jury deliberating the fate of an individual accused of a "cocaine buy." One juror brought a pocket Bible to the table, which she kept in front of her during the deliberations. At one point, 10 of us were certain that a particular witness had lied during his testimony, another one was not sure, but this particular juror was adamant that he had told the truth.

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury has charged that the county is failing to meet state standards to inspect restaurants four times a year. In a written statement released this week, the jury put most of the blame on the county's inability to retain qualified staffers. A report by the jury indicated that the actual frequency of county inspection is 1.6 times per year, less than half the state standard. "We recognize that the county has a staffing problem, but we feel that there are reasonable solutions," said jury foreman Robert Leland.

A Los Angeles jury concluded Monday that Anthem Blue Cross should cover the cost of an out-of-state liver transplant that a California man paid for after the insurer balked. In addition, the jury ordered Blue Cross to pay plaintiff Ephram Nehme's legal expenses, which could dwarf the $206,000 cost of the transplant. Blue Cross approved Nehme's liver transplant in late 2006, and he was on the waiting list at UCLA Medical Center. But the company refused to pay when Nehme, gravely ill and fearing for his life, decided to have the operation in Indiana, where wait times are far shorter than in California.

The jury in the trial of Bruce Koklich, accused of killing his wife, must start deliberations all over today, after a judge excused one juror and replaced him with an alternate. The group had deliberated for five days. The excused juror had a pre-planned commitment, but the judge, the prosecutor and defense attorney named him to the panel because they thought the trial might be over by Thursday.

A jury Thursday found no negligence by the designers of a bridge on Interstate 95 that collapsed in 1983, dropping vehicles 70 feet into a river and killing three people and injuring three seriously. The Superior Court verdict came in a civil lawsuit filed by the state, which was seeking $25 million in damages from the designers of the Mianus River bridge.

The judge in the trial of Palestinians accused of hijacking the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro Saturday accepted the resignation from the jury of a Communist Party provincial legislator who, prosecutors said, could be subject to political pressure. The juror, Silvio Ferrari, a member of the Genoa province legislature, had sent a letter to Judge Lino Monteverde requesting to be dropped from the jury after prosecutors had suggested to him that he could be open to influence by a party official.

The acquittal of O.J. Simpson is a signal to the world that in America it truly does not matter if you are black or white. With money, you can hire a team of Faustian creatures who will question the very nature of reality and human perception. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran's playing of the "race card" in his pleas to the jury--indeed, to the entire African American community, which overwhelmingly supported him--was the moral equivalent of exhorting blacks to pick up a brick and throw it at a white truck driver, and the jury picked up that brick and threw it. GARRETT WHITE Los Angeles My heart and my prayers go out to the families--the Browns and the Goldmans.

An Orange County Superior Court jury ruled Wednesday that Anaheim was not responsible for the 1981 death of David Mendoza because its employees could not have known a power line was down when they re-energized it, electrocuting the 16-year-old. Manuel and Obdulia Mendoza had been seeking $1.2 million as compensation for the death of their son and for the trauma suffered by Manuel, who witnessed the death. The power line that killed David was knocked down during a storm.

The Laura Troiani jury began deliberating Wednesday on whether the 26-year-old mother of two should be sentenced to the gas chamber. "The only issue will be whether she dies by your timetable or God's," defense attorney Geraldine Russell said of her client, who was convicted by the same jury Aug. 26 of the first-degree murder of her husband three years ago.

Re "Jury spares killer's life in rail crash," July 16 Unbelievable. Carmelita Alvarez, the wife of convicted killer Juan Manuel Alvarez, is going to tell her children when they get older that their father was unfairly convicted. In fact, what she should tell her children is that their father was subjected to the best system of justice ever devised, that he was presumed innocent until proved guilty, that he was justifiably convicted following a public trial and full opportunity to confront his accusers and that his life was spared by a jury of his peers.