State Moves to Make Jury Service Less of a Trial

Few people look forward to jury service, but state officials have been working hard to make the civic obligation less onerous.

A measure signed into law last month involves slowing down attorneys who seek out jurors for after-the-fact details about deliberations.

The new law says lawyers who contact jurors after trials--often to find out what worked or what didn’t in their strategy--must clearly state whom they represent and tell jurors they are not obligated to talk.

The law also requires legal eagles to tell jurors they have a right to review and receive a copy of any subsequent declaration filed in court--since it may identify the jurors.

“I think it’s a good thing,” said Peggy Yost, a court manager who oversees the approximately 2,000 Ventura County residents who serve each month on criminal and civil juries.

“I’ve served on a jury myself and I know there are a lot of people who don’t want to be identified out there for a lot of reasons,” Yost added.

In addition to that law, the state has hiked juror pay from an abysmal $5 a day--the lowest such salary in the nation--to $15 a day, although that doesn’t kick in until the second day of service.

And finally, a state panel is deliberating whether to rework the final instructions given by judges. If this happens, a phrase like “preponderance of evidence” could be replaced with “more likely true than not true.”

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What’s that commandment? Oh, yeah--thou shalt not steal.

A local pastor has moved from a holy house to the Big House after being sentenced last week to two years and eight months in state prison for embezzlement.

The Rev. David C. Molstre, 59, former head of First Lutheran Church in Camarillo, was convicted of stealing $218,000 from another church in the early 1990s.

Authorities say the money was taken during Molstre’s five-year tenure at Shepherd of the Valley Free Lutheran Church in Palmdale, before moving to Ventura County in 1994.

Molstre was arrested in October 1997 after Palmdale church officials discovered the theft. Molstre, authorities said, admitted to pocketing a portion of the tithing for a mortgage payment.

The husband and father of four has retired from the ministry. In addition to prison time, he was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution.

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A plan to buy 70 cases of hot smokes was stubbed out last week when three men were arrested on suspicion of purchasing the stolen cigarettes from undercover cops.

A burglary at a smoke shop last month prompted Ventura County sheriff’s detectives to dig into black market trafficking, which apparently has boomed with the price of cigarettes soaring to more than $4 a pack.

“Undercover officers met with the suspects and negotiated the sale of cigarettes, which the suspects thought were stolen,” Senior Deputy Mike Bamford said.

On Thursday, a team of cops toting 2,100 cartons met three men in the 300 block of Arneill Road in Camarillo and accepted $42,000 in cash during the transaction.

As the cigarettes were being loaded into a van, Mouin Elmoughrabi, Vahid Assadi and Akram Hatoum, who live outside the county, were arrested.

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Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.