Blogging Jurors
The estate of Scott Eskew filed a negligence claim against defendants, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) and Metra, after Scott was killed by a Metra train. In 2009, a Cook County Circuit Court jury returned a 5 million dollar verdict to the plaintiff. Among various post-trial motions filed by Metra and BNSF, the defendants filed a motion for an evidentiary hearing on juror misconduct in regards to a juror who maintained a blog during trial. Cook County Circuit Court Judge Donald J. Suriano denied the motion. The defendants appealed.
Justice Hoffman of the Illinois Appellate Court, 1st District, upheld the trial court’s ruling. Eskew, et al., v. BNSF, et al., 2011 IL App (1st) 093450. In Illinois, to compel a post-trial evidentiary hearing on juror misconduct, the moving party must produce specific, detailed evidence. People v. Kuntu, 188 Ill. 2d 157, 161 (1999). A verdict may be challenged by showing the existence of improper extraneous information. Redmond v. Socha, 216 Ill. 2d 622, 636 (2005).
The appellate court held that the trial court correctly observed that the defendants had not produced any evidence showing that the jurors were exposed to improper extraneous information bearing on the crucial issues in the case. Further, the blog entries did not indicate that any information was received either from the juror’s husband or from any other source.
The court cited to People v. Runge in regards to the defense’s argument about premature deliberations. 234 Ill. 2d 68 (2009). Although premature deliberations are not proper, they may not be so serious as to warrant a new trial. “The important question is not whether the jurors kept silent with each other, but whether each juror kept an open mind…” Here, the court concluded that the blog’s content was not biased. In fact, the blog indicated that jurors were committed to keeping an open mind and were “guarding their objectivity fiercely until the last syllable of testimony [had] been uttered…”
You can find the juror’s blog entries at http://greenroomthoughts.blogspot.com/search/label/justice
