Tag: impartial jury
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Colorado Supreme Court ponders what to do when substituting alternate jurors mid-deliberation
When one juror in Ricardo Castro’s criminal trial became incapacitated 11 hours into the jury’s deliberations and could not continue, there was broad agreement afterward that the trial judge did everything he could to emphasize the need for remaining jurors to begin anew – with the alternate juror replacing her stricken counterpart. The question now…
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Appeals court declares automatic reversal not required after Jeffco judge forgot to swear in jurors
For the first time on Thursday, Colorado’s second-highest court determined a criminal defendant’s convictions are not subject to automatic reversal if a trial judge neglects to swear in the jury. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals noted the U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly recognized the constitutional right to a sworn jury. Although…