Juror’s ‘Twilight-Zone’ State Told in Transcripts : Denny case: Several panelists called dismissed member confused. Judge refuses to release another who wanted out.

Tensions among jurors in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial were revealed in sharper detail Thursday as Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk unsealed transcripts of closed hearings in which several jurors complained about the “twilight zone” mental state of a juror dismissed earlier this week and explained another juror’s anger at being sequestered.

Ouderkirk refused to dismiss that panelist for alleged misconduct, and deliberations continued Thursday as attorneys and the press pored over the transcripts for clues to the jury’s status and state of mind.

One juror said Juror 104, upset at being sequestered, had run through a corridor of the panel’s hotel, screaming: “ ‘I can’t take it any more.’ She was cussing and saying . . . she just wants to go home” to her boyfriend.

In the transcript, Ouderkirk said that juror’s problem had been corrected.

Jurors also complained about Juror 373, who was dismissed from the panel.

“We have all been trying to figure out exactly what is going on in her mind,” the jury forewoman says in the transcript. “So I really don’t know . . . if she is pondering or way off in the twilight zone. I am not trying to be facetious or sarcastic. I just don’t think she is all up there.”

Ouderkirk released the previously sealed transcripts after attorneys from The Times and New York Newsday wrote him asking that they be made public.

On Thursday a defense attorney was incensed that Ouderkirk had dismissed Juror 373 on Monday for failing to deliberate, yet denied his motion to remove Juror 104--the woman fellow jurors said repeatedly interrupted deliberations, saying she would settle for a hung jury so she could go home to her boyfriend.

“This case is in shambles,” said Attorney Edi M. O. Faal, who represents defendant Damian Monroe Williams. Juror 373 was “thrown out on the flimsiest of grounds,” he said. “Any convictions we get here will lack credibility.”

He said he did not think any juror will now have the courage to disagree with the rest of the panel for fear of being removed.

He requested a mistrial Thursday, based on a letter from Juror 373 to Ouderkirk after she was dismissed, saying she suspected that certain jurors were predisposed to “a specific determination irrespective as to the facts of the case.” Ouderkirk denied that motion.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore said the jury is “working very hard to return a just verdict.” She said the circumstances affecting Jurors 373 and 104 are “worlds apart factually.” Juror 104’s problem was corrected with family visits and more phone time, Moore said.

But referring to Juror 373, Moore said, “You cannot correct a problem of lack of (mental) capacity.”

Moore said distinctions between simple words such as “ and “ and “ or “ gave Juror 373 problems.

“All of the jurors made it clear that (problems with Juror 373) had nothing to do with any position she was taking on any particular count,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison, Moore’s co-prosecutor. “It was because the process was being jeopardized.”

Faal defended Juror 373 on Thursday, saying she is “probably the most articulate of all the jurors.” He said she is poised and had no problems understanding jury instructions.

In the transcript of Monday’s closed hearing, the jury forewoman said the panel could be discussing something very simple “that even an everyday high school kid could understand, and (Juror 373) just doesn’t get it. She just doesn’t get it.”

The forewoman said she didn’t think Juror 373 “can comprehend anything that we are doing.”

“I tell you, she is a nice lady,” said the forewoman, who, like Juror 373, is African-American. “It’s nothing personal. And I don’t think she is doing this on purpose to be a pain in the butt.”

Other jurors had authorized her to say that they are so frustrated with Juror 373, “it’s either her or us,” the forewoman said.

Ouderkirk removed Juror 373 for not deliberating, yet she was able to reach verdicts on two counts with the other jurors, Faal said outside court Thursday.

Three jurors accused Juror 373 of voting on issues and then forgetting how she voted, Faal said. Ouderkirk did not question Juror 373 on that allegation, and did not give her an opportunity to refute it, Faal said.

In Monday’s closed hearing, Juror 373 told Ouderkirk she did not think the defendants were getting a fair trial. She said she wanted jurors to take some time before beginning deliberations to go over instructions and make sure they understood them before applying them.

“Otherwise, I feel personally that the defendants would not be getting a fair trial,” she said.

“I can’t stay back there and fight with them because it’s too hard on me,” she said. “It really is.

“And I just can’t in good conscience see it go like this. I mean I really cannot. They’re not getting a fair trial. I am telling you . . . they’re not.”

Asked why she felt that way, Juror 373, who said in jury selection that she had studied probate and business law, said jurors were not following the law.

“And we can’t unless we . . . get it together . . . assimilate the information and . . . know what we are dealing with, we can’t be following it.”

Ouderkirk reminded her that she had had the instructions for a week, and she said “there is opposition. I may want to do something one way, but I am not the foreperson . . . there are 11 other people in there, you know, and they’re in complete opposition to me--completely.”

Asked on what issue the panel opposed her, Juror 373 said, “These are lay people” whose attitudes seem to be simply ‘I got my mind made up . . . let’s get on with it,’ and I can’t go with that, you know, I can’t.”

In court Thursday, Ouderkirk chastised the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American weekly newspaper, for publishing the name of a woman the paper said is Juror 373. He also scored an NBC-TV cameraman for attempting to photograph jurors as they left court in a van.

“I can’t understand why any organization would want to publish this information if not for sensationalism,” he said of the Sentinel article. “This is the reward for jury service.”

Publishing names or photos of jurors violates a court order, Ouderkirk said, and he is consulting attorneys for the court about possible legal action.

“Leave these people alone,” he said of the jurors. “Let them do their jobs unmolested.”

Sentinel publisher Kenneth R. Thomas told KCAL-TV that the judge’s assertion was “ridiculous.” An NBC spokesman said that the cameraman was not working for the network.

Without any outside pressures, the jurors had tension enough during deliberations, according to the transcripts.

In records of one closed hearing, Juror 307, a Latina in her 20s, said Juror 104 “just wants the trial over with. And if it comes to a hung jury, that it would be fine with her just as long as she can go home.”

During deliberations, Juror 104 would start talking about reaching “either no verdict or a hung jury so she can go home to her boyfriend,” Juror 307 said.

She said Juror 104 is difficult to talk to because the conversation “will come back to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend is a real big issue to her.”

Another juror said that during deliberations Juror 104 would say something like, “I don’t care. Well, let’s just--I can go for a hung jury. I am just ready to go home.”

Juror 104 told Ouderkirk that a half-hour in six days was not enough time with her family, “or actually it was pertaining to my boyfriend.”

After jurors were given Sunday off and Juror 104 could spend seven hours with her boyfriend, she said: “That’s relieved some of my stress. . . . I just didn’t feel I was getting enough time on the phone or, you know, visitation with my boyfriend.”

Ouderkirk noted that the juror’s problems “have been resolved in her own mind and her boyfriend’s mind,” and he refused to remove her from the panel.

Five jurors have been removed from the original panel since the trial began--two for illness, one for misconduct, Juror 373 on Monday for failing to deliberate and Juror 152 on Tuesday for personal hardship. Only one alternate, a white woman in her 40s, remains. The jury of 10 women and two men now includes four African-Americans, four Latinos, two Anglos and two Asian-Americans.

The jury is weighing the fate of Williams, 20, and Henry Keith Watson, 29, who are charged with premeditated attempted murder in the beating of Denny at Florence and Normandie avenues, a flash point for rioting last year.

Williams is also accused of aggravated mayhem--intentionally causing permanent disability or disfigurement--for allegedly hitting Denny in the head with a brick. Attempted premeditated murder and aggravated mayhem carry maximum penalties of life in prison.

The two men also are charged with assaulting or robbing seven other people at the intersection as rioting broke out after the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial in Simi Valley.