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COURTS✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
Jurors recalled in Maui doctor’s bid for new attempted murder trial
Filed 1d ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk
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The Path of the Goblin King
Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Yair Haklai · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
A Maui doctor convicted in April of attempted manslaughter, rather than the attempted murder prosecutors sought, is trying to get that verdict thrown out over claims a juror discussed deliberations with an outsider during the trial.
On Friday, nine of the twelve jurors returned to an Oahu courtroom and told Judge Paul Wong, one by one, that they knew of no such contact. Three jurors, including one who was off-island, are due back September 18 to answer the same two questions.
The defense also wants to probe whether the jury was ever unanimous on intent to kill, based on an affidavit from the foreperson, but the judge is keeping that question sealed off under Hawaii's rule against poking at jurors' internal reasoning. Prosecutors, for their part, would like this kept to exactly what's alleged and nothing more.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
A judge drawing a hard line between 'did anyone talk to outsiders' and 'what were you actually thinking in there' is doing exactly what the rulebook asks of him, even if it looks like splitting hairs from the gallery. The defense wants the whole barn door open and the state wants it shut tight, and the judge is trying to open it just wide enough. Anybody who's sat on a porch during a dispute between neighbors knows how satisfying that middle path never is to either side.
