Ex-Laguna man’s murder conviction overturned; retrial ordered
A former Laguna Beach resident accused of stabbing his childhood friend to death in 2012 likely will get a new trial after a state appeals court panel reversed his conviction.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury had found Ryan Taylor Bright, now 30, guilty in December 2014 of second-degree murder in the death of Jensen Gray, 27.
But in a 12-page decision last week, a three-justice panel of California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote that it agreed with Bright’s assertion that the trial judge erred in declining to grant a mistrial amid questions about the jury’s impartiality.
The appellate panel sent the case back to the lower court to be retried.
During Bright’s trial, a juror was dismissed after speaking to a witness in a court hallway and researching the state penal code on the differences between murder and manslaughter, against the court’s rules.
Another juror told the court that the dismissed juror had shared with the rest of the jury, in general terms, the differences in sentencing for both crimes.
The jury was tasked with considering the facts of the case, not the possible sentencing.
Bright’s lawyers motioned for a mistrial on grounds that the entire jury had been tainted and that some jurors might think the manslaughter sentence was too lenient and thus not be able to make a fair decision based on the facts of the case. The judge denied the motion.
The appellate justices noted in their decision that the jury was divided on whether the crime in Bright’s case was manslaughter or murder and had deadlocked several times before reaching a guilty verdict on second-degree murder.
Presiding Justice Dennis Perluss wrote on behalf of the panel that the trial judge properly dismissed the juror and conducted a hearing to determine whether the jury had been tainted. However, Perluss wrote, the judge also should have tried to ascertain exactly what the juror said to the others during deliberations.
“Without a more complete inquiry as to what information Juror 10 actually shared with the rest of the jury, we cannot say with confidence his discharge and the court’s general admonition to the jury not to consider sentencing were sufficient to cure the taint caused by the misconduct,” Perluss wrote. “Under the circumstances, without confidence in the impartiality of the jury, we have no choice but to reverse the judgment.”
Gray and Bright had met in middle school and attended Laguna Beach High School together, according to an Orange County Register report.
Prosecutors said during Bright’s trial that a group of people including Gray and Bright were drinking rum in Bright’s Santa Monica apartment on July 11, 2012, when Gray and Bright began to argue. The argument escalated into a fight, and police were called, prosecutors said.
Officers eventually left without making an arrest. Bright also left, authorities said.
At about 3 a.m. the following day, Bright tried to enter through his apartment’s sliding glass door, but a woman who was inside, believing the apartment belonged to someone else, tried to stop him. That escalated into a physical altercation, and Gray stepped in to defend her, authorities said.
Prosecutors alleged that Bright stabbed his friend six times with a pocketknife, inflicting a fatal wound to the heart.
Bright argued during the trial that the group attacked him when he tried to enter the apartment through the front door and that he stabbed Gray in self-defense.
Bright was sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison, according to court records.
Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
