Jury tampering is real and to be taken seriously
Most people want to avoid jury duty, but some want to get on a jury for nefarious reasons
I appeared on two more shows this week to talk about wrongful convictions.
Check out my interview with Greg Penglis- in the second hour- where we talk about wrongful convictions and the trans issue invading family court.
Also, check out my interview with Jim White on Critical Disclosure.
In both interviews, we talked about juror misconduct.
Juror misconduct may seem like a foreign concept since most people will only commit misconduct to avoid jury duty, but in fact, juror misconduct is much more common than many people think.
When I interviewed Fletcher Long, he told me that when an attorney, he expected juror misconduct and prepared for it.
In arguably his most high-profile case, he caught juror misconduct after the fact: causing a mistrial.
Long defended Brandon Vendenburg, the most well-known defendant in the Vanderbilt rape trial.
After the trial was over, Long discovered that one of the jurors failed to mention that they too were the victim of a sexual assault during the voir dire.
A rape victim who served as a Tennessee jury's foreman set a pair of convicted rapists free — for now.
That's because a Nashville judge declared a mistrial Tuesday, nearly five months after two ex-Vanderbilt University football players were found guilty in the aggravated rape of a 21-year-old coed in 2013.
Now Brandon Vandenburg, 22, and Cory Batey, 21, will face a new trial and their attorneys will ask for bonds to be reinstated Wednesday, the Tennessean reported.
Defense attorneys pushed for the mistrial after learning one of the jurors did not disclose during the selection process that he was the victim of a "23-count statutory rape indictment" 15 years earlier, WKRN reported.
Something like this happened in the murder trial of John Giuca. One of the jurors determined to get on the trial because he knew John and hated Jews: though John isn’t Jewish.
John’s mom, Doreen Giuliano, discovered this; she went undercover and became the juror’s girlfriend: secretly recording him admitting to his misdeeds.
Unlike in the Vanderbilt case, even after this information came out, it was not enough, and John remained convicted.
As I told Greg, the most significant form of juror misconduct is usually committed by gangsters.
John Gotti continued to be found not guilty- until he was convicted- but only later was it learned that he was bribing jurors.
A juror who voted to acquit Mafia boss John Gotti five years ago was convicted Friday of agreeing to take a $60,000 bribe to throw the case.
George Pape, 53, was one of the anonymous jurors who stunned the Brooklyn federal courthouse in March 1987 when they cleared the reputed Mafia godfather and six co-defendants of racketeering charges.
Gotti later referred to that case as a frame-up, and it was one of three courtroom victories that led newspapers to dub him the "Teflon Don."
But the government continued its attack on the reputed head of the Gambino crime family and convicted him in April in a federal murder-racketeering case. Gotti is now serving a life sentence with no chance of parole.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney said there have been four trials involving Gotti, his brothers or other reputed members of the Gambino family in which prosecutors have suspected jury tampering.
Vandenburg was still convicted in the second trial.
Al Capone was also known for bribing jurors. In a fictionalized scene which played out in the Untouchables, the jury which had been seated was switched for another when it was learned that some had been bribed.
The reality was slightly different (the judge was not compromised).
Twelve-man jury that convicted Al Capone for income tax evasion in 1931. This jury, substituting one Capone tampered with, was made up of men from outside Chicago including a retired hardware dealer, a country storekeeper and a farmer
As an aside, Harry Aleman is the only man to be tried for the same crime twice. That’s because it was learned after his trial that his judge was bribed. Aleman, a hitman, was tried in a bench trial.
Alleged mob hitman Harry Aleman will face murder charges in a killing for which he was acquitted 16 years ago.
State's Attorney Jack O'Malley said he will test the constitutional protection against double jeopardy in the case because the judge in Aleman's original trial allegedly accepted a $10,000 bribe.
Aleman, the nephew of the late Chicago mob chieftain Joseph Ferriola, was reindicted Wednesday in the death of a warehouse laborer William Logan.
'Justice took a hit in 1977,' O'Malley said. 'We intend to prove Aleman was never in jeopardy of being convicted. The Constitution does not protect people who fix murder cases or bribe judges. His trial was a sham and double jeopardy does not apply.'