Judge Questions Lawyer on Possible Tainting of Juror

After prosecutors rested their case Wednesday, Judge Frederick A. Jones turned his attention to a strange--and potentially problematic--issue that emerged this week in the trial of Diana Haun.

A male juror eating lunch by himself was recently approached by a deputy public defender outside the courthouse cafeteria.

Concerned about a possible breech of ethics, Jones ordered the lawyer to appear in his courtroom late Wednesday afternoon to offer an explanation.

“Pure stupidity,” was Deputy Public Defender Gary Wayne’s only defense.

Sitting in the empty jury box about 30 minutes after the panel was excused, Wayne--who handles child dependency matters not criminal cases--explained the chance meeting.

He told Jones that he had approached the man during the lunch break to talk to him about a business opportunity. The lawyer runs a sideline business in “network marketing,” he said.

“You’ve heard of Amway?” he asked the judge, drawing a comparison to his business, which also involves direct sales.

Halfway through the 20-minute conversation with the juror, Wayne said, he told the young man, who was wearing his juror tag, that he was a lawyer.

When the juror indicated that he was serving on a “special trial” and lived in Santa Barbara, Wayne realized the man was a juror in the Haun trial, abruptly cut off the conversation and left, he said.

Haun’s jury is made up entirely of Santa Barbara County residents because of concerns about heavy pretrial publicity in this county.

The judge asked the attorneys how they wanted to handle the situation. Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they wanted to think about the matter overnight and come back today to discuss it further.

Though it is unclear how the incident could affect the Haun trial, it is possible that Jones could decide to dismiss the juror if he felt he was tainted in any way. He would be replaced by one of six alternate jurors.

Among the concerns is that Wayne said he discussed various aspects of the criminal justice system with the juror, including how the American justice system compares with that in England.

The entire discussion, Wayne acknowledged in court, occurred as he was--in Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn’s word--”sizing [the juror] up as a marketing prospect.”

After Jones excused Wayne from the informal inquiry, the judge made just one remark:

“Just when you think you’ve heard and done it all in your own little world, along comes a lawyer who actively seeks out jurors in the public cafeteria to sell detergent.”