Legal News

Astor Case Focuses On One Threatened Juror

By Nathan Koppel

At what point does jury dysfunction require the reversal of a guilty verdict?

Anthony Marshall, convicted in October of stealing from his mother, legendary New York socialite Brooke Astor, is mounting an appeal that focuses on acrimony within the jury room, the New York Times reports today.

Astor, who died in 2007 at the age of 105, suffered from Alzheimer's late in life. Marshall (pictured) and Astor's lawyer, Francis Morrissey Jr., were accused of exploiting Astor's ailments to trick her into directing millions of dollars their way.

Jurors convicted Marshall of giving himself an unauthorized raise of about $1 million for managing his mother's finances; Morrissey was convicted of forgery charges and has joined Marshall in the appeal. The trial started in March of last year and ran into September ─ one reason tensions may have run high. (Click here and here for background posts.)

Juror Judith DeMarco, a legal analyst for Bloomberg, told defense lawyers she voted to convict the defendants, even though she didn't believe they were guilty, because she feared for her safety, the Times reports.

DeMarco evidently told the defense team that she felt another juror moved menacingly towards and flashed gang signs at her during a crucial stage of the deliberations.

"None of the jurors were wiling to give either of these defendants a shot," DeMarco told an investigator, according to the Times. "I held out as long as I could."

After the verdict, one juror sent an e-mail to her fellow jurors describing how she had portrayed the deliberations to a reporter. "I followed the script of 'the frustrations ran high bit, and that the next say it was if nothing ever happened," she wrote.

The defendants in their appeal fault the trial judge for allegedly failing to question jurors after he received a note signaling that a juror felt threatened.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).