Rethought Verdict Is Rejected

A jury cannot deliver its final verdict and then reconvene outside the courtroom and change its mind, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

“Once the jury has been discharged and has left the presence of the court, it is without power to correct or amend its verdict,” Justice Donald L. Corbin wrote.

Corbin was ruling on a case involving a couple who sued the former owners of their home claiming they had to pay for costly repairs.

Since the lawsuit was filed in 2000--more than five years after John and Carol Mills bought the home--a jury ruled in favor of the defendants, Robert and Barbara Spears, and said no damages were due because the statute of limitations had passed.

Both parties declined to have the jury polled and jurors were dismissed. Minutes later, the bailiff notified the court that the jury was back in the jury room and that the foreman had told him jurors felt they may have misunderstood the interrogatory pertaining to damages.

The trial judge then polled jurors and found that 10 of the 12 said the verdict read earlier into the record was not their verdict. The court allowed the jury to reconvene and the Mills were awarded $5,900 in damages.