Drugs Allegedly Found on Juror

A juror in a San Diego murder trial was arrested Friday as she entered the County Courthouse, where deputies from the marshal’s office said they confiscated three grams of a controlled substance from the woman’s purse.

Judith Miriam Taylor-Fisher, 33, had been serving as a juror in the trial of Stacy Butler, who is charged in the slaying of Police Officer Jerry Hartless. He was shot in the head in Southeast San Diego on Jan. 9, 1988 and died three weeks later.

Taylor-Fisher was arrested about 4 p.m., shortly after she passed through the metal-detection security system, which was installed because of terrorist fears emanating from the start of the Persian Gulf War in mid-January.

Deputies searched her purse and found about 3 grams of what appeared to be crystalmethamphetamine, said Deputy Steve Sharpe of the San Diego County marshal’s office. Possession of the substance, which was being tested Friday night, is a felony, Sharpe said.

Sharpe said that, since the security system was installed, deputies have confiscated “dozens” of weapons, most of them knives. He said the drugs would not have been detected, nor would there have been any reason to search the woman’s purse, before the stiffer security measures were adopted.

Taylor-Fisher was being held on $3,000 bail Friday night at the Las Colinas Jail in Santee.

The effect, if any, of Taylor-Fisher’s arrest on the trial will not be determined until Monday.