The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a murder conviction for jury misconduct last week. The court found two instances of jury misconduct in the trial of Erickson Dimas-Martinez. ¹ First it found that one juror tweeted during trial. The tweets while somewhat vague appeared to be about the trial. After the judge admonished not to tweet. The juror tweeted again showing an unwillingness to follow court orders.

While the juror’s tweeting raises questions about the juror’s ability to follow the judge’s orders such as those regarding the law it is hard to see where the defendant was prejudiced by the juror’s actions. The primary reason for limiting jurors’ communication with the outside world regarding the trial is to prevent them from being influenced by people who have not been sworn as jurors and who have not heard the evidence. But here the communication was one way. There was no evidence that anyone gave the juror feedback regarding the tweets or in anyway influenced the juror.

A second juror fell asleep several times during the trial. While in the past the Arkansas Supreme Court has refused to reverse convictions due to a juror sleeping, in this case the trial court was repeatedly told that the juror had fallen asleep and the court was told contemporaneously with the juror sleeping. In prior cases the court had not been told until after the trial was over. Furthermore, the bailiff saw the juror sleeping and offer the juror water.

The matter of a juror sleeping in the courtroom is another matter. In order to properly deliberate and determine the guilt or innocense of a defendant a juror must listen to all of the evidence and visually see the witnesses. Part of the job of a juror is to observe the witnesses and determine from visual observation whether they believe the juror is telling the truth. Therefore whether or not the juror fell asleep during the trial the juror’s closing his eyes interfered with the juror’s ability to properly carry out the juror’s duties.

The Supreme Court reversed the conviction base on juror misconduct and remaded the case for a new trial.