Jury in Penn Retrial Sequestered at Its Own Request

Jurors in the Sagon Penn retrial were sequestered Monday after taking the highly unusual step of asking a Superior Court judge to seclude them from friends, families and co-workers for the remainder of their deliberations.

The decision came at the start of the 21st day of deliberations.

Jury foreman Howard McDowell handed Judge J. Morgan Lester a note on Thursday that said the jury had discussed the issue and wanted to be sequestered.

“The feeling among the group is to have us sequestered,” wrote the jury foreman. “The group, as a whole, has expressed they need time to get prepared to be sequestered and would like to know if the weekend is enough time to take care of personal matters and be fully prepared on Monday.”

“They are all locked up,” Lester said late Monday afternoon after issuing the order.

Lester, who said he overruled “a very mild” objection by defense attorneys in granting the request, said he acted on information that co-workers made comments to some jurors about the case last week when deliberations were postponed because two jurors were ill.

“Sequestering would lend itself toward an efficacious administration of justice,” Lester said in announcing his decision.

Jurors deliberated into the evening hours Monday and were taken to an undisclosed hotel for the evening.

Jurors usually resist being sequestered because of the hardships of being locked in a hotel room and not being able to return to their families at night. Several defense attorneys said they could not recall a case in which jurors had asked to be sequestered. They speculated that the jurors were having a difficult time arriving at a decision.

Effective Monday, the jury was to deliberate at the downtown courthouse during the day and be driven by San Diego County marshals to the hotel in the evening. They are permitted to telephone family members in the presence of marshals.

Jurors are sequestered in very few cases, usually when judges are concerned about deliberations in a highly publicized trial being tainted by exposure to widespread media coverage.

The jury in the first Penn trial was sequestered after Superior Court Judge Ben W. Hamrick received reports from the prosecution that one of the jurors had discussed the case with co-workers. The sequestration order was later rescinded when jurors complained about the inconvenience of being isolated.

Penn, 25, faces five felony counts in the March 31, 1985, shooting death of San Diego Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian ride-along Sarah Pina Ruiz.