Judge in Camarena Case to Probe Alleged Jury Misdeeds

A federal judge in Los Angeles said Wednesday that he will conduct an inquiry to “get to the bottom” of allegations that improper influences may have been exerted on the jury that recently convicted all four defendants in the Enrique Camarena murder trial.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie made the statement during a hearing he called in an attempt to learn the sources of information that a defense lawyer used in filing a motion for a mistrial last Friday on grounds of alleged juror misconduct.

On Tuesday, Rafeedie had threatened to hold Edward Medvene in contempt of court if the Century City trial lawyer refused to disclose who gave him information that formed the basis for the mistrial motion.

Medvene told the judge Wednesday that some of the information had come from three other defense lawyers in the case, some from a newspaper reporter and some from a source he could not remember.

The judge decided against holding Medvene in contempt of court. In fact, Rafeedie, who has had a contentious courtroom relationship with Medvene for months, praised him Wednesday.

“I believe you are an ethical lawyer, Mr. Medvene,” the judge said. “I believe you have conducted yourself ethically in this case.”

Medvene represents Ruben Zuno Arce, a wealthy Mexican businessman who is the brother-in-law of a former Mexican president. Last week, the jury convicted Zuno of conspiring to kidnap and murder Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was slain in Guadalajara in February, 1985.

Medvene said defense attorneys Michael Meza and Gregory Nicolaysen were the people who told him that jurors may have been discussing matters about the case not introduced in evidence, including newspaper articles.

Medvene also said that defense lawyer Michael Burns told him on July 13 that he had overheard individuals who were either U.S. marshals or Drug Enforcement Administration agents saying in a courtroom hallway that they knew that certain jurors had left their homes to go to court and were probably late because of traffic tie-ups caused by a fire on a freeway interchange that day.

In a court declaration filed Wednesday, Burns said he did not specifically recall who made the statements he reported to Medvene.

Additionally, Medvene told the judge that Miguel Molina, a reporter for La Opinion who covered the lengthy Camarena trial, is the one who told him that a U.S. marshal had asked jurors when they were going to return a verdict in the case. And, Medvene said, he did not remember who told him that marshals were going in and out of the jury room on a frequent basis. Molina declined comment Wednesday.

“There should be some inquiry of government personnel about these things,” Medvene said. Rafeedie assured him there would be.

“The court intends to examine all these issues,” Rafeedie said. “The court takes seriously any external influences on the jury. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

Soon thereafter, there was an ugly exchange between Medvene and Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel A. Medrano, the lead prosecutor. Medrano said that he found it “mind-boggling” that a lawyer as meticulous as Medvene would tell the judge that he could not remember one of the sources for his mistrial motion.

Medrano also implored the judge to ask Medvene if he or anyone in his law firm, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, had had “any improper contact” with court personnel.

Medvene immediately denied that there had been any improper contact and attacked Medrano’s ethics. “There is a certain word I heard a long time ago--’chutzpah,’ ” Medvene said, referring to the Yiddish term for gall. “Mr. Medrano is the new definition of that.”

He then accused Medrano of “purposely” lying to the jury during his closing argument. “For that man to impugn us and to try to start a witch hunt is incredible,” Medvene declared.

Rafeedie then told the lawyers: “We’ll get to all of it. We’ll get to every piece of evidence,” on the allegations of possible jury-tampering. “You can bet on it.”

He said he would hold a hearing on the issue, probably in October, but did not set a firm date.

Last Thursday, after being informed by his court stenographer, Julie A. Churchill, that she had seen a newspaper in the jury room the previous day, Rafeedie questioned the jurors individually in his chambers. Each member of the six-man, six-woman panel denied having read articles about the case.

But some of the jurors, including forewoman Peggy Dolan, told the judge that they thought some of their colleagues had read articles about the case. All the jurors acknowledged that copies of The Times had been brought into the jury room every day.

Some of the jurors said that if they came upon an article with a Camarena headline, they simply did not read it. Several told the judge they read only the sports pages, while another said he read the business section to monitor the progress of his stocks.

The hearing lasted about 40 minutes and the judge told the jurors there were to be no more newspapers brought into the jury room. At the time, the jurors had convicted three defendants and were deliberating on the fourth and final defendant, Javier Vasquez Velasco. Federal prosecutors Medrano and John L. Carlton were present at the hearing, as was Vasquez’s lawyer, Nicolaysen.

During the hearing, held on the 14th day of deliberations, Rafeedie thanked some of the jurors for their diligence and told jury forewoman Dolan: “You’re doing a good job of leading the jury and we appreciate the time and effort that you’ve all put in up there.”

After Dolan left the room, Nicolaysen asked the judge not to compliment any juror on his or her performance. He said such a compliment “might suggest” that the judge was expressing an opinion on the guilty verdicts they had returned, but before Nicolaysen could finish his statement, Rafeedie interrupted him and said “Counsel, I don’t need that.”

In a related development Wednesday, Rafeedie said that on Friday he would announce his ruling on a motion by a Guadalajara doctor that an indictment against him in the Camarena case should be dismissed on the grounds of “outrageous government misconduct.”

Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain was indicted in January on charges that he had administered drugs to Camarena at a Guadalajara house so that he could be revived and interrogated further by his torturers. Last April 2, Alvarez was abducted from his Guadalajara offices by a group of Mexican police with ties to a Los Angeles-based DEA operative and brought to the United States.