Jurors Told to Use Back Door at Murder Trial : Courts: The judge’s order occurs after he receives the third complaint about the defendant’s family making contact with the panel.

A Ventura County judge Monday instructed jurors in a death-penalty case to come and go from the courtroom through a back door because of continuing complaints that the defendant’s family has become too friendly with them.

The order came after Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch received his third complaint in less than a week about defendant Christopher James Sattiewhite’s family.

The three-week-old Sattiewhite trial is expected to go to the jury today. 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.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday claiming that a court reporter had witnessed family members talking about the case in the presence of the jury on at least six occasions in recent weeks.

During one hallway incident, four family members were seen “forming a U” around one juror, prosecutors said.

“We really don’t know what conversations took place between the family and the juror,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn told the judge. “They may have discussed evidence that was introduced outside the presence of the jury.”

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The other complaints about family contact with the jury came last week.

On Feb. 8, Storch refused to admonish a juror who held Sattiewhite’s 2-month-old niece during a break in the trial. The judge said he “would appeal to everybody’s sense of fair play”--urging the relatives to do their best to avoid bringing the baby into further contact with jurors.

And Thursday, the bailiff reported to the judge that a family member had discussed the case in the presence of the jury during another break outside the courtroom.

Storch again asked the family member in question to be “fair-minded” and try not to influence the jury.

Glynn, however, asked the judge Monday to do more than ask for cooperation. He encouraged the judge to question the juror who held the baby and the one who was surrounded by the family.

Glynn called the family members’ actions “ongoing and prejudicial.” Family members have denied talking about the case in the presence of the jury.

Sattiewhite’s attorney, Willard P. Wiksell, said whatever had transpired between the family and jury was out of his control. Earlier, Wiksell had asked Storch not to admonish the jurors, saying it might reflect badly on their opinion of his client.

Storch did not broach the subject with jurors when they first entered the courtroom Monday morning. But after testimony for the morning was completed, he told the jurors that they no longer would be allowed access to the public hallways in front of the fourth-floor courtroom.

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He told them that they are to enter and leave from the courtroom through the back door and take their breaks in the jury-deliberation room. Normally, jurors do not make use of that room until after they are ready to deliberate.

“I think it’s unfortunate that jurors come in contact with witnesses and family members,” Storch said. “I think what the court has done this morning--using the jury-deliberation room as a lounge--in retrospect should have been done from the beginning.”

Storch on Monday also interviewed the juror who held the baby and the one who was crowded by the family. Both said their objectivity had not been compromised, and they were allowed to remain on the panel.