Juror furor at 'no jail' bias
Mistrial over race-based holdout
This might have been worth mentioning three weeks ago.
A Brooklyn juror who declared — after the first day of a vehicular-manslaughter case — that she would not “send a black man to jail,” caused a mistrial Thursday in the case of an African-American man who crashed his car into an art curator, killing her.
A fellow juror said she overheard Juror No. 3 mutter, “I won’t send a black man to jail, that’s crazy,” as she left court after the first day of Marlon Sewell’s trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court, which began Sept. 11.
But Juror No. 8 didn’t say anything until Thursday — three weeks in and after three full days of deliberations — because she thought the middle-aged woman would change her stance and keep a fair and open mind.
Juror No. 8 — who told reporters that she and another panelist heard the utterance — as well as Juror No. 3 and Sewell are black.
The rogue juror refused to answer questions as she left court Thursday, telling reporters, “Get away from me.”
Other jurors, who also declined to give their names, said that they had been leaning toward a conviction, but that Juror No. 3 “had her mind made up and wasn’t open to hearing anything else.”
Even the judge was blown away by the intractable juror.
“I’ve never seen a note like this,” Judge Vincent Del Giudice said Thursday before he dismissed the jurors. “Where one juror is racially biased in favor of the defendant.”
Juror No. 3 caused so much turmoil that on Wednesday, Juror No. 8 had to be hospitalized after tensions boiled over.
She suffered a panic attack, and an ambulance was called because she felt she was being “persecuted” by the rogue juror.
“This person was just creating so much conflict in this room,” Juror No. 8 said after the panel was released. “I couldn’t take it, I fainted and started trembling and crying.”
Luckily, she was caught by another juror as she collapsed.
Sewell, who was driving with a suspended license, will be retried on manslaughter charges Nov. 12. The father of six faces up to 15 years behind bars if convicted for the December 2015 crash in Fort Greene that left Victoria Nicodemus dead and others injured.
“This was a tragic accident,” defense lawyer Damien Brown said as he left the courtroom.
Prosecutors allege Sewell ignored a gas leak in his car that caused him to jump the curb and slam into holiday shoppers. Sewell says there is no evidence of a leak.