2nd Etan Patz Jury Knew Members of the First Were Watching, Defense Says
"The sentencing of the man convicted of killing Etan Patz was postponed Tuesday after defense lawyers said they would seek to have the verdict set aside on the basis that jurors had been given inappropriate information about people who attended the trial.
Lawyers for the man, Pedro Hernandez, told Justice Maxwell Wiley of State Supreme Court in Manhattan that they needed more time to assemble evidence for a motion asking that he throw out the guilty verdict against Mr. Hernandez, a former bodega clerk...
At issue now is whether court officers told jurors at the second trial that members of the first jury were in the courtroom regularly, sitting near Stanley Patz, Etans father. Justice Wiley took pains to limit what the second jury heard about the first trial, ruling that the lawyers could refer to it only as a previous proceeding.
The concern is that the jurors were provided information they should not have had, Mr. Hernandezs lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said on Tuesday outside court. Thats the problem.
After the guilty verdict, one juror, Michael Castellon, 55, a lawyer for a construction company, sought out and embraced a former juror who sat with Mr. Patz, according to reports by Newsday and DNAinfo.com. Asked how he knew who she was, Mr. Castellon told a Newsday reporter that a court officer had informed him that jurors from the first trial were at the retrial. He did not say when the exchange occurred. He then asked that his comment not be published, Newsday reported..."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...e-first-were-watching-defense-says/ar-AAnExmE
(© Louis Lanzano for The New York Times Jurors who found Pedro Hernandez guilty of killing Etan Patz speak to the media on Feb. 14. According to news reports, Michael Castellon, foreground, right, sought out and embraced a member of an earlier...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------