Word: juror
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Certainly the Simpson jury is well on its way to making judicial history as the most contentious and trouble-plagued panel in memory. Since the trial began in January, six jurors have been dismissed for reasons ranging from medical issues to misconduct, which leaves only 12 active jurors and six alternates. And with months of numbingly exhaustive testimony still to come, Ito is in danger of losing even more jurors to stress, boredom, personality conflicts or unforeseen dilemmas. Last week, juror No. 453, a flight attendant, asked Ito to let her go because she just "can't take it anymore...
...request, which Ito has so far refused to grant, came amid the snowballing tensions prompted by the public statements of dismissed juror Jeanette Harris. She was ousted from the jury on April 5 for not reporting her experience with domestic abuse on the jury form. (Harris and her husband both deny that any domestic abuse ever took place.) She immediately proceeded to give interviews that portrayed the Simpson panel as a sandbox teeming with childish feuds and racist infighting. Among other things, Harris alleged that the guards from the Los Angeles County sheriff's office gave preferential treatment...
Sequestration is always difficult, notes psychologist Valerie Hans, author of Judging the Jury. But the O.J. jurors have been subjected to "one of the most intrusive juror questionnaires I have ever seen. It asked many private questions.'' Watching fellow jurors being investigated and dismissed--in one case the juror's hotel room was searched--has only exacerbated the panel's feeling that they have lost their privacy and, like O.J., are under arrest. Says noted defense attorney Leslie Abramson: "They're being guarded by people who are used to treating everyone like prisoners. They need crisis counseling.'' But, adds Abramson...
Sidebar transcripts from yesterday's trial show a room that at times seemed to resemble an elementary schoolclassroom more than a courtroom. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran complained that one juror wasn't paying attention (Ito agreed, although he took no action), while defense attorney Peter Neufeld complained that prosecutor Marcia Clark was giggling during testimony. Clark denied it, saying "this did not happen. ...Mr. Neufeld is on some other planet." Neufeld today apologized to criminalist Andrea Mazzola for mispronouncing her name, then resumed his cross-examination, trying to show that Mazzola was part of a police conspiracy to frame Simpson...
...Simpson murder trial played itself out on two stages, both dangerous to the prosecution. Pugilistic defense attorney Barry Scheck forced Los Angeles criminalist Dennis Fung to admit to a series of apparent oversights, slips and errors made in gathering and preserving physical evidence. Meanwhile, Judge Lance Ito summoned ousted juror Jeanette Harris to a special hearing in order to quiz her about her allegations of racial tensions on the jury. Among her complaints: a system of segregated gyms and video-viewing rooms was set up because of disagreements between white and black jurors; she also alleged that whites were given...