Hernandez Update:

The days started out (I’m following the tweets) with the judge having the prosecutors, defense counsel, Hernandez and two jurors (one at a time) at the side bar for a conference. It is because two jurors reported that a television news truck followed them as they went on their way home last night. I assume the television reporters were trying to identify the jurors taking a note of their license plates so that they could quickly get a “scoop” after the trial on the jury deliberations.

Judge seems upset. Apparently threatens the TV station involved that it will be barred from the courtroom, not that this means much. There’s little left to see and the TV station can follow the live feed.

Judge suggests somehow a felony of juror harassment may be involved although that does not seem to be the case. Some talk of mistrial comes up but that seems far-fetched just because of this incident. Someone did tweet that a mistrial would be good because another judge would then handle the case. Another tweeted that the punishment for the TV reporter following the jurors would be to spend one night with the judge.

It seems to me the judge is way overreacting. There’s no law against trying to identify who the jurors are. It seems to me it is in the TV station’s right to do this as long as it does not approach the juror. How was the juror affected by the TV van? Was the juror surprised that the trial was receiving TV coverage? If it affected juror the juror should be removed. That is the remedy.

Now judge is threatening the TV station and demanding it appear in the courtroom. Someone should tell the judge to calm down. If the TV station did something wrong there’s plenty of time to address it.

That was how the day started. The jury was sent back to deliberate. Around 11:00 a.m. the two jurors were back in front of the judge. The day so far has the jury deliberating but during two parts of it two jurors have been pulled out of the jury room and questioned. Talk about a rocky road, this is certainly becoming one.

Update, the judge has banned TV station from courtroom. Clearly she has no right to do this since the TV station did nothing wrong. TV station panics and has sent a team of lawyers to the court. Judge has issued an order “no person shall approach . . . communicate with . . . a deliberating juror . . . in this case.”

Wow. When the jurors return home their family members better stay away from them. If they communicate they will be in contempt of court. If you know any juror you’d better not get in touch for a few days. Talk about an over broad order, this is one for the books.  Shows the problem some people have acting under pressure.

Not only that, earlier in the day the jurors sent a question revolving around the issue of possession of  .22 ammunition. What’s going on with the jury? Who cares about that? This is a murder trial and the jury is wondering about the date the defendant is supposed to have illegally possessed the ammunition. You think the jury has already convicted him of the murder charge but doesn’t want to pile on by including the ammunition charge?

Or, it has already decided he didn’t do it. The latter seems too unlikely because the prosecution presented a strong circumstantial case and the best that would come out as far as I can see is there would be a mistrial. There is no way I can see 12 jurors agreeing he didn’t do it.

The issue in the case is simple. Did Hernandez murder Llyod. A jury concentrating on the minor issues like possession of ammunition suggests a very strange group. If Hernandez walks you know who the first person is who he should thank for his first escape.