By Lincoln G. Peters
The jury within the ongoing Capital Constructing legal trial earlier than Choose Roosevelt Z. Willie, Prison Court docket “A” presiding decide, is dealing with doable dismissal following a prosecution movement alleging juror misconduct, a transfer the protection has sharply criticized as an assault on the jury’s integrity.
The Prosecution, on Monday, December 29, 2025, filed a movement earlier than the decide searching for the dismissal and disbandment of the jury as a result of compromise.
The prosecution’s movement arises from an incident on December 22, when a juror requested a replay of a video recorded on November 10, 2024. After the footage was replayed in open courtroom, the juror requested the prosecution witness, Reafel Wilson, to establish the defendant, Etheridge. Following the identification, the juror remarked that the person proven within the video seemed to be a Chinese language man and questioned whether or not the individual within the footage was the identical because the defendant.
The prosecution argues that this change, together with different questions posed throughout Wilson’s testimony, raises critical considerations that jurors could have been consulting amongst themselves.
Protection attorneys forcefully rejected these claims throughout arguments on Monday, December 29, 2025, urging the courtroom to disclaim and dismiss the movement. The protection maintained that the prosecution did not current any concrete proof of juror misconduct or establish any motion that violated the regulation or the courtroom’s directions.
In response to the protection, jurors are permitted to ask clarifying questions, and such participation demonstrates attentiveness fairly than impropriety. Counsel described the prosecution’s allegations as “false, deceptive, and unsupported by proof,” arguing that dissatisfaction with juror questions doesn’t meet the authorized necessities for the extraordinary treatment of disbanding a jury.
The protection additional characterised the movement as an unwarranted assault on the integrity of the jury panel and, not directly, on the authority of the courtroom that empaneled and instructed the jurors. They emphasised that there is no such thing as a proof that any juror was influenced, intimidated, or interfered with throughout the trial.
Addressing the precise juror referenced by the prosecution, the protection argued that the questions raised had been neither unlawful nor prejudicial and fell squarely throughout the juror’s obligation to evaluate the proof and search readability within the pursuit of justice.
The protection additionally warned that the prosecution’s try to politicize juror inquiry is unprecedented and opposite to the ideas of a good trial, cautioning that such actions may undermine public confidence within the judicial course of.
Choose Willie has not but dominated on the movement. A call is predicted on Friday, January 2, 2026, which is able to decide whether or not the trial proceeds with the present jury or whether or not the panel might be disbanded.
