Jury

Want to get out of jury duty? Take up smoking. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz has suggested keeping smokers off the jury in the Tommy Bromwell RICO case. His concern: Jurors stepping outside the courthouse for smoke breaks might overhear conversations among all the spectators and journalists swarming around the high-profile trial. "It's just a potential risk. It's just something to think about," Motz told me. Motz said he got the idea from another judge he met at a conference.

Looking back, David Levin says, he understands how Stephen L. Snyder won a $2.8 million verdict for the family of a woman who died after gall-bladder surgery.Levin, an Annapolis lawyer, is still certain he beat Snyder on the expert testimony, the medical details, the sometimes tedious scientific evidence. But Snyder triumphed in the hearts of the jurors, and that is the only battlefield that counts."There was a heavyset woman in the front row who sold real estate, and she thought Snyder was the cat's meow.

A jury note that apparently was never read to the defendant in a 1997 Baltimore County trial could jeopardize the defendant's conviction for a murder that went unsolved for 19 years.William R. Isaacs, 46, of Baltimore was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1978 fatal beating of 22-year-old Mark Schwandtner, whose body was found in Big Gunpowder River beneath a railroad trestle near the Harford County line.On Tuesday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld Isaacs' October 1997 conviction.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Los Angeles Times, which was published Wednesday.A CALIFORNIA jury recently handed down a $4.8-billion punitive damage award against General Motors in an auto accident in which passengers were horribly burned. Obviously, and understandably, the jury acted both out of sympathy with the victims and outrage against the auto maker. But it is virtually certain that any award of this size will be drastically reduced by either the trial judge or on appeal.

An Anne Arundel County jury yesterday convicted Richard E. Janey of second-degree murder in the 1994 stabbing death of a 29-year-old Annapolis woman.The body of Susan McAteer was found in woods off Dubois Road outside Annapolis Dec. 27, 1994, about a week after she was stabbed 58 times.In September, a jury convicted Janey, of the 100 block of Obery Court, of accessory after the fact, arson and conspiracy for helping to dump the woman's body and burning the car in which she was stabbed. But that jury deadlocked on the second-degree murder question in Janey's second trial on the charges.

THE EXONERATION of Sgt. Maj. Gene C. McKinney on charges of sexual misconduct -- though surprising, given that six females independently claimed he groped and crudely propositioned them -- may be seen as a bad moment for women, but it should not necessarily be viewed as a step backward for women in the armed services.The Army took this case seriously, suspending McKinney, its highest-ranking enlisted man, when complaints were lodged. Then it prosecuted him in a court-martial it called the most important in 20 years.

Citing his disadvantaged childhood and other factors, a federal jury ruled yesterday that drug lord and killer Anthony Ayeni Jones will not be executed for running one of the most murderous narcotics rings in Baltimore history.Jones, as he had throughout his two-month trial, showed no emotion as the sentencing verdicts were read in a packed courtroom in Baltimore's U.S. District Court. A short time earlier he had chatted with his lawyers about basketball superstar Michael Jordan.The jury of nine women and three men, which convicted Jones May 27 on charges of murder in aid of racketeering, federal witness retaliation and drug dealing, deliberated just 2 1/2 hours in the "death phase" of the case before deciding against execution.

An excerpt from a Monday San Jose Mercury News editorial:CONGRESS may have had "The Godfather" in mind when it wrote a landmark anti-racketeering law. But last week, a jury in Chicago applied the statute to punish violent protesters, not mobsters.In this instance, the jury's finding and the fine appeared warranted. But Congress should watch the expanded use of the law, known as RICO, and rewrite it if necessary. There is a danger that the government and the targets of protest could use RICO to limit free speech.

Lawyers in a Rockville courtroom have spent 11 days portraying two Ruth-ann Arons: an evil, calculating woman capable of paying for murder, and a mentally fragile victim of sexual abuse who is incapable of knowing right from wrong.But there are two Ruth-ann Arons in the courtroom that theteams of lawyers don't talk about -- the one the jury sees and the one it does not.One bows her head on the table in front of her, raps her knuckles against her forehead and sobs when damaging testimony is given.

A Carroll County jury yesterday acquitted a 19-year-old Marriottsville man of two charges of automobile manslaughter in an Eldersburg crash that occurred while he was speeding to get TTC teen-age cousins home by their curfew.William J. Kassakatis was found guilty of seven lesser offenses and fined $2,000 by Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. in the June 25 accident.Killed in the accident in the 6600 block of Monroe Ave. were Jill Marie Peay, 15, of the 7400 block of Norris Ave. in Sykesville, and Jessica Erin Harley, 16, of the 1700 block of Maryland Ave. in Shady Side, Anne Arundel County.

When a man is alleged to have cut in front of him in line at a crab cake joint, Keith Anthony Rantin Jr. pulled a knife. When a man came to his house to retrieve some commercial painting equipment, the Baltimore man pulled a gun. A Baltimore jury this week convicted Rantin, 33, on three misdemeanor charges in the shooting of Kelly Myers. In acquitting Rantin of the most serious charge against him - attempted murder - the jury sided with Rantin's attorney, who argued that his client acted in self-defense when he shot the painting contractor in the face and back with a shotgun.

A Baltimore judge has thrown out a city jury's murder conviction and ordered a new trial in the case of a man accused of stabbing a friend with whom he was peddling stolen tools. Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin told a stunned prosecutor last week that she was setting aside the jury's Sept. 19 verdict at the defense's request because the witnesses had radically changed their stories from one hearing to the next - a fact that the jurors couldn't grasp without watching a recording of the previous hearing.

An Abell Foundation report that found disparity between the verdicts of Baltimore jurors and their suburban counterparts has infuriated the city's top prosecutor. After reading a March draft of the report, which recommends the creation of a regional jury pool, Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy called the study "potentially divisive" and asked in a letter to Abell President Robert C. Embry Jr. that it "be shelved" or its recommendations reworked. "Disparities in Jury Outcomes - Baltimore City vs. Three Surrounding Jurisdictions - An Empirical Examination" was supposed to come out in April.

Some of the grand jurors investigating allegations of misconduct by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon have grown tired of the probe and its near-daily media coverage, one grand juror told a Sun reporter last month. The exchange provoked a cringe: grand jurors - or any jurors - are not supposed to expose themselves to news accounts of the cases they are assigned. And it raises a question that goes to the heart of the integrity of the criminal justice system: are jurors routinely violating their oath not to research cases - at home on their computers, in the jury deliberation room on the iPhones, by glancing at news reports - on their own?

Annapolis windsurfer Farrah Hall and her Olympic dream might be nearing a third and final strike. A race jury denied her appeal yesterday, reaffirming its initial ruling that sends Florida windsurfer Nancy Rios to the Summer Games in China and leaves Hall at home. "I am disillusioned and bitterly disappointed with the committee's actions," Hall said in a statement released yesterday afternoon. Hall's protest over the results from the Olympic trials and an earlier jury decision was considered over two days and in separate hearings last week in Providence, R.I. With the announcement yesterday, Hall is expected to exhaust what might be her remaining options: the U.S. Olympic Committee review board and a date next month with a California arbitrator.

Farrah Hall's Olympic dream might have caught its second wind. The Annapolis windsurfer finished second at the RS:X team-selection trials in October after a jury's controversial decision to grant another competitor's appeal. After Hall won the regatta on the water, a jury ruled that Nancy Rios' race was affected by a tear in her sail and awarded the Miami windsurfer the trials' win. Only the first-place finisher is slated to represent the United States at the Summer Olympics. The jury initially declined to hear Hall's request for redress because it was filed too late.

A 21-year-old man was convicted by a jury yesterday of first-degree murder for his role in the killing of a 16-year-old on New Year's Day 2006, according to the Baltimore state's attorney's office. Anthony Dickson of the 2700 block of Yarnall Road in Baltimore County was identified by a witness as the man who shot Ronny Martin in the rear seat of a parked car in the 2600 block of Marbourne Ave. Police recovered a shotgun that they say was used in the shooting, according to prosecutors.

After five days of wrenching testimony about the drowning death of a 5-year-old boy at Crofton Country Club, an Anne Arundel County jury awarded his parents more than $4 million in damages yesterday. Hunt Valley-based DRD Pool Service Inc., the club's pool management company, was found negligent for failing to adequately train its lifeguards and properly staff the pool. It was ordered to pay Thomas Freed and Debra Neagle Webber $2,000,076 each - the 76 dollars serving as a symbol of Connor Freed's birthday, which was July 6. At a news conference yesterday, Connor's parents, who had filed the wrongful-death lawsuit, expressed relief that the trial was over, a sense of satisfaction with the jury's ruling and a determination to ensure that their son's death would not be in vain.

LOS ANGELES -- The jury in the Phil Spector murder trial believes it is unable to reach a verdict, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler announced yesterday. The jury, whose deliberations are in the seventh day, sent a note to the court saying it appeared to be hung, or unable to decide, on the issue of whether Spector killed actress Lana Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003. Wearing a gray striped suit and a red tie, Spector sat at the defense table where he has been a fixture for more than five months.

Maryland's Court of Special Appeals ordered a new trial yesterday in the case of a woman who won a multimillion-dollar malpractice judgment against a doctor who she said misdiagnosed her terminal cancer. The three-judge appellate panel found that a Baltimore Circuit Court judge had improperly replaced two members of the six-person jury with alternate jurors in the midst of the jury's deliberations. "We understand the trial court's interest in averting a mistrial due to a hung jury after a long and complex trial," wrote Court of Special Appeals Judge Deborah S. Eyler.