Conviction tossed over hearing-impaired juror

[The Straight Story]

Conviction tossed over hearing-impaired juror
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 10:37 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a juror with a hearing disability should not have been seated for a trial where an audio recording would be played.

In its 5-2 ruling Wednesday, the state's highest court agreed with a lower court that reversed the defendant's aggravated vehicular homicide conviction and ordered a new trial.

Scott Speer was convicted in Ottawa County in the 2002 drowning death of another man who was a passenger in Speer's speedboat on Lake Erie.

During pretrial discovery, prosecutors indicated they would use audio of a 911 call Speer made as evidence against him.

As the tape played in the trial, the hearing-impaired juror was shown a transcript. The Supreme Court says that wasn't the same and Speer did receive a fair trial.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/03/03/hearing-impaired.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

[KamaAina]

1. The court should have provided a sign language interpreter

assuming, of course, that the juror signs (many people who are "hearing-impaired", as opposed to profoundly deaf, do not).

Many other alternatives exist, such as the amplification systems used in movie theatres. And now, in all likelihood, a bad guy walks because the court didn't provide a reasonable accommodation. :grr:

[Orrex]

2. If only there'd been some way for counsel to exclude that juror from the pool

They might have avoided this whole thing...



However, once the jury selection was complete, then the attorney shouldn't be able to use it as a means of overturning the verdict, assuming no misconduct was involved.

[NoNothing]

3. How is providing a transcript

Not a reasonable accomodation?

[Renew Deal]

4. My guess the issue is that the driver sounded drunk on the call

And the transcript can't communicate that.

[Orrex]

6. That's a fair guess

When I served on a jury, the trial went into a months-long recess, after which transcripts of the testimony were read to us to refresh our memories. The defense attorney objected that the transcripts--even when read effectively--couldn't convey the "shakiness" of some of the witnesses.

He was overruled, and ultimately it didn't affect our verdict, but it was still a reasonable objection.

[NoNothing]

7. And a sign language interpreter would?

[DefenseLawyer]

5. A couple of problems

Transcripts can't denote tone of voice and other factors which can impact the meaning of a recording. Also, a transcript is an interpretation of what was said by the court reporter that typed it up. In most jurisdictions recordings are evidence but transcripts are not. Transcripts can be provided to aid the jury while they listen, but ultimately if a juror thinks he hears something in the recording that isn't in the transcript, he isn't required to defer to the transcript. Probably not fair to have someone that can't hear deciding on the validity of a recording. The goal of a criminal trial is not to accommodate jurors.

[customerserviceguy]

8. There would have been aspects to the call

that would not have been evident in a transcript, such as tone of voice.