[Guest post by DRJ

Last Friday I posted about a Houston murder trial in which a comment left on a Houston Chronicle blog raised questions about juror misconduct. Today’s court proceeding cleared the jury’s foreman of any wrongdoing:

“The judge in the David Mark Temple case ruled this morning there was no juror misconduct after hearing testimony from a Houston Chronicle reader who suggested on the newspaper’s Web site last week that a juror inappropriately spoke with people outside the jury room about ongoing deliberations.

The reader, Robert Fleming, used the screen name “REFster” to post a remark in the “reader comments” section on the Chronicle’s Web page about 9 a.m. Thursday, seven hours before the jury returned its guilty verdict in the former high school football coach’s murder trial.
“Psst… My boss is on the jury. Thinks they’ll have a verdict this afternoon,” Fleming wrote using the pseudonym.

Jurors are forbidden from discussing the case with anyone outside the jury room while the trial is still in progress. Attorneys for Temple on Friday issued a subpoena to the Houston Chronicle seeking information that would help them identify the reader. But Robert Fleming came forward on his own.

Fleming, who works at CenterPoint Energy, said in testimony this morning that his boss did not say he was on the jury or discuss anything about jury deliberations. He said he surmised through the time his boss was out of the office that he was serving on the jury for the Temple trial.

Fleming’s boss is the jury foreman. Fleming said he stopped by his boss’ office between 8:15 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. last Thursday. “I asked him how long he would be going through the deliberations,” he said. His boss told him the jury could be through that day, he said, although he did not specifically reference the Temple trial. That was their only conversation about the trial, Fleming said, and he and his boss did not discuss anything more. His comment on Chron.com was based on his assumptions, he said.”

I don’t envy Fleming going back to work with his boss but kudos to him for coming forward and to his boss for carefully following the judge’s instructions. Public incidents like this do more than a judge ever could to bring home to jurors and potential jurors the seriousness of jury instructions.

— DRJ