Uproar Follows Juror’s Cuddling of Baby Girl

The issue of life or death in an Oxnard murder case took a back seat this week while a judge and lawyers on both sides debated what to do about a juror who got too friendly with a cuddly baby.

The issue arose when Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn complained that a woman juror had held the defendant’s infant niece during a break in the emotional murder trial of Christopher James Sattiewhite.

Sattiewhite is charged with murder, kidnaping and rape in connection with the Jan. 26, 1992, slaying of 30-year-old Genoveva Gonzales, the mother of four small children.

Glynn asked Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch to admonish jurors and Sattiewhite family members not to have contact with each other--saying later that he thought such contact could make jurors less objective about the case.

Jurors in criminal trials are routinely instructed not to have any contact with witnesses or family members of defendants or victims. But Storch decided Tuesday that the incident with the baby did not warrant a formal admonishment, according to a transcript of the brief hearing.

“I am not going to order the family to do anything,” the judge said. “And I am not going to order the jury to do anything.”

Instead, said Storch, he would “appeal to everybody’s sense of fair play”--urging relatives of Sattiewhite to do their best to avoid any further juror-baby contacts.

The incident Tuesday was the first of two this week involving complaints about contact with jurors by relatives of Sattiewhite.

On Thursday, a bailiff complained that Sattiewhite’s brother-in-law, Wayne Walker, had discussed the case in the presence of the jury outside the courtroom.

Storch responded by telling Walker outside the presence of the jury to “be fair-minded” and try not to influence the jury in the future.

Walker, the father of the 2-month-old infant, is one of a handful of Sattiewhite relatives who have been regular visitors at the trial.

In an interview Thursday, Glynn said he witnessed the female juror holding a child in the air Tuesday during a break in the trial.

Glynn said he learned that Sattiewhite’s sister is the mother of the child that the juror held.

“I complained to the judge about the relationship with the defendant’s family,” Glynn said. “It makes it difficult for them to be objective.”

In court, Sattiewhite’s attorney, Willard P. Wiksell, encouraged Storch not to admonish the jury. “I think that would only prejudice (jurors against) Mr. Sattiewhite,” Wiksell argued.

Storch said problems with jurors and family members mingling are hard to avoid because the two groups share the same space in the corridors of the Hall of Justice.

Other courthouses, he noted, have private rooms to insulate jurors from participants in cases during breaks in trials.

“I think that certainly the court’s not going to condone family members ingratiating themselves with members of the jury, and I am not about to accuse any family member of doing that,” the judge said.

He encouraged the family members and jurors to “keep to themselves” as much as possible.

He also said he could understand how a juror might have ended up holding the infant, but asked the family to make sure that it does not happen again.

The judge also said he understood prosecutor Glynn’s argument.

“The problem that we have from the prosecutor’s standpoint (is) that it is difficult to get a juror to divorce oneself from a defendant’s family when one becomes involved with the defendant’s family.”

Glynn said Thursday that he is hopeful that won’t happen in this case.

“I hope the jurors are intelligent enough, and their principles are strong enough, that they won’t let this affect their decision.”