Juror

The retrial of a Canadian dentist accused of killing her physician husband in March 1999 in Pimlico is set to begin today with an effort to dismiss the charges because of the way the first trial ended. The case against Alpna Patel - a Hindu woman who married her husband, Viresh, in an arranged marriage less than a year before his death - ended in February with a mistrial. The lone male juror, who had voted with the rest of the jury to acquit Patel on murder charges, changed his mind after the forewoman announced the verdict, leading to a mistrial.

Political consultant Julius Henson took the witness stand Friday to defend himself against charges he tried to suppress the black vote on Election Day 2010, saying his job in former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s campaign was to encourage minorities to vote for the Republican. Henson said he had proposed working as a general consultant with a "bold" broad-based plan to help Ehrlich return to the governor's mansion. Instead, Henson said, his designated role was "outreach" to black communities.

The arguing got so heated on the fifth day of deliberations, the jurors in the Rodney King trial almost came to blows, according to a juror.The Fullerton, Calif., resident -- designated juror 11 during the trial -- described yesterday how the jury reached its historic verdict -- including the stressful day when one male juror's blood pressure zoomed up, forcing him to see his doctor."It was one of those days when everything just blew up," the 55-year-old man said. "We had been there for 40 days, trying to be nice to each other and that day it just broke up . . . We argued, screamed, almost took swings at each other."

Six weeks after Scott M. Greenberg was found shot to death in his parents' house in Owings Mills in August, 2009, police arrested Gerald E. Sears and charged him with murder, robbery and drug-dealing. Police never found the murder weapon, or the wallet, bank card and cell phone they claim Sears took from Greenberg. Nor did they find Sears' fingerprints or DNA in the house. What they did get were cell phone records, Sears' admission that he'd been in the house to sell crack cocaine, and no sign the house on Velvet Valley Way had been ransacked by a burglar.

A jury deliberating in the murder trial of Dominic J. "Crowbar" Carozza was dismissed yesterday after a juror admitted reading a newspaper article about the longtime city crime figure.The Baltimore Circuit Court jury had found Carozza and Robert J. "Tattoo Bobby" Vizzini guilty Thursday of conspiracy to commit murder and told a judge it had not reached a verdict on charges of murder and using a handgun in a violent crime.Judge David Ross ordered the jurors to continue deliberating, but when they returned yesterday morning, a juror admitted reading a story about the case in The Sun. The article described Carozza's background and noted that he and Vizzini had previously been found guilty in the murder, only to have that conviction reversed on appeal.

REPORT FROM Juror No. 364, Circuit Court for Baltimore City, regarding the events of April 16, 2002: 8:15 a.m. Arrive at Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse at appointed hour and enter Room 240, Jury Waiting Room, which looks like the stage set for Last Bus Stop to Hell. Everyone sits on hardback chairs that seem to fill every inch of the room. Some jurors read newspapers. Some stare into space. Some catch quick glimpses of each other while pretending they aren't. To stare is to invade already-cramped personal space.

Ruthann Aron's murder-for-hire trial in Montgomery County Circuit Court was postponed yesterday when one juror called in sick and another juror and the lead defense lawyer also reported feeling ill.Judge Paul A. McGuckian, himself battling a virus, sent everyone home.During jury selection, McGuckian increased the number of alternates to six because of the trial's anticipated three-week duration and the possibility of illness. One juror was dismissed in the trial's first day for undisclosed reasons.

The verdict was in on Anthony Sylvester Fair: Guilty on two counts of murder. Then the clerk polled the jury, and the East Baltimore teen-ager wasn't so guilty -- at least for a while.The unusual turn of events yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court began after the first nine jurors who were polled said that they agreed with the guilty verdict. Fair's mother sobbed.The clerk then turned to Juror No. 10 and asked the usually perfunctory question: "You have heard the verdict of your forelady -- is your verdict the same as hers?"

The trial of a 17-year-old youth charged with killing a Morgan State University student ended in a mistrial yesterday when a juror suffered chest pains during deliberations in Baltimore Circuit Court.Kenneth Andrew Bond of the 4600 block of Marble Hall Road in Northeast Baltimore is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, attempted murder, attempted robbery and use of a handgun in the fatal shooting of Terrence Augusta McKoy, 19, a Morgan State freshman, and the wounding of Robert Lucas, 10, who was hit by a stray bullet.

Baltimore Police Officer Edward T. Gorwell II's manslaughter trial teetered on the brink of mistrial yesterday when a juror who failed to show up for the second day of deliberations was apprehended at his home and brought to court for closed-door conferences with the judge and lawyers in the case.Baltimore Circuit Judge Ellen M. Heller and Henry L. Belsky, lawyer for the police officer, refused after the conferences to say whether a mistrial had been declared."We'll see Monday morning," said prosecutor Timothy J. Doory said.

Avi and Eliyahu Werdesheim, Jewish brothers accused of beating a black teen while guarding their Park Heights neighborhood, withdrew a request to change the court venue Tuesday and elected to move forward with a Baltimore trial by judge, waiving their right to be heard by a jury of their peers. They had previously complained that media coverage of their case, coupled with comparisons to the Florida shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was gunned down by a zealous neighborhood watch captain, made it impossible to impanel a fair jury in the city.

Wails and screams echoed through the halls of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse on Friday, as relatives and friends of two teenage girls absorbed the fact that no one would be imprisoned for their hit-and-run deaths on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard last June. About two dozen relatives and friends comforted each other after walking out of the small courtroom they had packed for the two-day trial of Reuben Dunn. When the jury foreman read off "not guilty" on each of three charges, the supporters gasped, some weeping and others shaking in anger.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers rested their cases Tuesday in the retrial of two brothers accused of dousing a pit bull with an accelerant and lighting her on fire, with jurors poised to begin deliberating Wednesday afternoon. Prosecutors called their last of eight witnesses before lunch Tuesday, questioning a state Department of Juvenile Services staff member who said in brief testimony that one of the defendants, Travers Johnson, was not on house arrest at the time the dog was burned.

Jurors watched a 35-minute police surveillance video, a key piece of evidence, as state prosecutors began Thursday to lay out their case against brothers Tremayne and Travers Johnson, accused of setting a pit bull ablaze. Deputy State's Attorney Jennifer Rallo likened the state's case to the pieces of a puzzle, telling jurors they would hear statements from police officers and a friend of the defendants that would corroborate what can be seen in the video. But defense lawyer Andrew Northrup, representing Tremayne Johnson, emphasized that absent from the video is any picture of a crime being committed.

A police surveillance video that was key evidence in the 2011 mistrial of Travers and Tremayne Johnson, accused of setting a pit bull on fire, will be presented to jurors in the brothers' retrial, a judge ruled Monday. Defense attorneys had sought to have the tape thrown out. An expert witness brought in by prosecutors said the video is of higher quality than many other surveillance tapes used in court, with twice as many frames per second as similar tapes. Distortions in the video that defense lawyers attacked are common and can be the result of many factors, Douglas Lacey, a forensic video analyst, said in court.

The victim was escorted into the Baltimore courtroom by guards. The four-time convicted drug dealer, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit as well as wrist and ankle shackles, said he didn't see who shot him in the back, but he told jurors that "word on the street" pinned it on "Dre" and "K-Rock. " Prosecutors had no other eyewitnesses, no gun, no bullet casings. One other issue complicated the case: The police detective originally assigned as the lead investigator also arrived at the courthouse in handcuffs — charged last summer with trafficking heroin — though he was never called to testify.

The juror sitting next to me was bent over two dime-store notebooks.One notebook contained column after column of handwritten numbers.The man would study them intently and then write a number in the other notebook.Often he would stare at the number he had written and then erase it.He was wearing bicycle pants, flip-flops and a faded T-shirt.I had been told to report for jury duty. He, apparently, had been told to report for beach duty."Lottery numbers," he whispered to me.He explained that if 26, for instance, had not come up for several weeks, then it was now "due" to come up. Or if 11 had come up several times, it was "not due."

LOS ANGELES -- Tension among jurors in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial was revealed in sharper detail yesterday as Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk unsealed transcripts of closed hearings in which several jurors complained about the "twilight-zone" mental state of a juror dismissed earlier this week and explained another juror's anger at being sequestered.Judge Ouderkirk refused to dismiss that panelist for alleged misconduct, and deliberations continued as attorneys and the the news media pored over the transcripts for clues to the jury's status and state of mind.

— A Charlottesville jury recommended Wednesday a combined sentence of 26 years in prison for George Huguely V, less than three hours after finding him guilty of second-degree murder and grand larceny in the 2010 alcohol-fueled beating death of Yeardley Love, his former University of Virginia girlfriend. Huguely was acquitted of more serious murder charges, requiring premeditation, as well as robbery, burglary and breaking-and-entering allegations. Circuit Judge Edward Hogshire will set a formal date for sentencing in April, when he will choose to accept the recommendation, as is typical in most cases, or reject it. Standing outside the courthouse in the pouring rain at the end of the night, defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence said his team was disappointed in the verdict and looked "forward to some corrections in what happened here.

Though George Huguely V is charged with premeditated murder in the 2010 death of his University of Virginia girlfriend, Yeardley Love, attorneys following the case say it's unlikely that the jury will find he intended to kill her when members begin deliberating Wednesday in Charlottesville, Va., Circuit Court. But that doesn't mean he won't be found culpable. Even his lawyers have said that Huguely, who admits drunkenly assaulting Love, bears responsibility for her death. Just what he might be guilty of - along with the time he's assigned to serve in prison - will depend upon the jury's interpretation of key evidence, which includes an hourlong videotaped statement that Huguely gave to police.