Alleged Misconduct Delays Rape-Murder Case : Courts: Juror read about defendant before trial ended. Attorneys are unsure what effect the apparent violation could have on sentencing.

The sentencing of an Oxnard man facing a possible life prison term for raping a mother of four and then ordering her death was delayed for three weeks Wednesday to give prosecutors and defense attorneys time to look into an allegation of jury misconduct.

But attorneys said Wednesday that they do not know what effect, if any, the alleged misconduct could have on Jackson’s conviction and sentence.

During an interview last month, juror Janice Susha told a Ventura County district attorney’s investigator that she had read a newspaper article about Jackson after the guilt phase of his murder trial but before the penalty phase began.

A jury rejected the prosecution’s request for the death penalty and instead sentenced Jackson, 26, to life in prison without the possibility of parole in May for the 1992 murder of Genoveva Gonzales.

But Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele still needs to review the jury recommendation and formally sentence Jackson.

Susha appeared in court Wednesday to answer questions from attorneys about the newspaper article. On the witness stand, she also admitted to talking to her husband about the article.

“I was thinking that the trial was all over,” Susha said. “I was thinking that I heard everything possible that there was to hear.”

Jurors were ordered to refrain from reading published accounts about Jackson and talking about the case with others until the trial ended. Prosecutors were alerted to the possible misconduct when investigator Beth A. Hamilton interviewed Susha.

Attorneys in capital cases typically interview jurors about the trial after it has concluded, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn said. Defense attorneys also sent investigators to talk to the jurors after the trial, but Hamilton said Susha never mentioned reading an article related to the case during the trial, attorney Charles L. Cassy said.

Hamilton said she asked Susha about what effect a probation report had on the jury as it deliberated the penalty phase. The report contained information of a previous rape Jackson committed, but was not introduced during the guilt phase of the trial.

Susha said she already knew about the rape because she read an article in a local newspaper about it, Hamilton said on the witness stand Wednesday.

“I don’t think there was any question that there was jury misconduct,” Cassy said. “And this would have been extremely relevant if the death penalty was delivered.”

But because Jackson got the lightest of the only two possible sentences he could have received, Cassy said he is unsure if the revelation means anything.

“I have to do a little research,” he said.

Steele reset sentencing for Sept. 28.