Mar 26 2008
Snohomish County Judge determined to get to the bottom of alleged Jury underwear misconduct
I kid you not. I mean you cannot make this stuff up.
See what happens when a juror independently tested the famed “Fruit of the Loom” defense:
Underwear test by a juror puts murder verdict in doubt
The “Fruit of the Loom” defense didn’t work for an accused murderer in January, but attorneys are taking another shot at it after learning a Snohomish County juror experimented with his own underwear during the trial.
In a rare move, a judge on Tuesday said she will order all 12 members of the panel back to court April 9 to get to the bottom of things by asking a few questions.
She’ll then decide if any juror misconduct warrants a new trial for Daniel Jay Perez, 21.
Perez was convicted of second-degree murder for using the drawstring from his sweatpants to strangle his cellmate at the Monroe Reformatory in the Monroe Prison Complex.
Perez confessed after the body of Cory Garzina, 24, was found in their cell, saying the marks on his hands came from the drawstring.
At his January trial, Perez told a different story, saying the marks on his hands actually came from a unique suicide attempt.
Perez testified that he was afraid of two other inmates who were the killers. So he tore the elastic waistband from his underwear and used it to try to strangle himself, causing the marks on his hands.
…
In a conversation following the verdict, the jury foreman told prosecutors that at one point during the trial, another juror talked about going home and trying to rip the waistband off from his own underwear.
From his experiment, the juror concluded that it would have been difficult for Perez to have entirely separated his underwear waistband from the rest of his drawers.
When Perez’s attorneys heard about the experiment, they asked for a new trial, alleging juror misconduct.
Objection Your honor! The juror is playing with his skivvies!
“It is highly likely that most of the jurors were wearing underwear throughout the trial,” the prosecutors wrote in their legal briefs.
Anyone else see the unintended irony in “legal briefs”?
But…the libertarian in me wants to know how the prosecutor is so sure none of the jurors were going commando? How can he be so sure, hmmm?
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One Response to “Snohomish County Judge determined to get to the bottom of alleged Jury underwear misconduct”
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It’s just a matter of separating the thread seam from the fabric. Once you have an opening, you can tear the band off from there.
Then again, most men are not that familiar with sewing, and it still doesn’t explain his dead cellmate.
If there were only two people in the cell, and one is dead from strangulation but there is no sign of a hanging, there are only two possible explanations. Either the man committed suicide by strangling himself (pretty much impossible, since he would lose consciousness and let go of his grip on the string) or his cellmate strangled him.
And where are the skivvies in question? Was there any testimony or evidence which would support his defense of “I decided to commit suicide-by-underwear, but I have no idea how that dead guy got there”? What about the string; was the string missing from his sweat pants when he was found in the cell with a guy who had died from being strangled by a sweat pant cord?
I guess I think the juror didn’t need to experiment with his own undies in order to figure out what really happened; I’d guess it was done out of personal curiosity, rather than as extrajudicial conduct which may have resulted in an improper verdict.
i agree with you that some of the jury may have been “going commando”, LOL.