Deadlocked Jury Favored Defense - RI Lead Paint Trial

Now that the gag order has been lifted for the members of the jury in the landmark Rhode Island (RI) lead paint trial, some interesting facts are coming out.  Judge Michael Silverstein dismissed the jury yesterday after ruling No Punitives and freed them up to speak to the media.

One juror Sheryl Costa disclosed yesterday that when the jury was deadlocked, the vote was four for the defense and two for the state.  Obviously, that meant that the trial could have ended with the defense's being acquitted.  The final verdict did acquit one of the defendants Atlantic Richfield.  I intend to dig deeper this week into this support of the defense and then a shift to the state if I can get in touch with some other jurors.  In any event, this is good news for the three defendants and their lawyers as they will probably embark on an appeal.

When the deadlock was announced, Judge Silverstein then asked the jury foreperson if more time for deliberations might help break that deadlock.  The foreperson replied that he would poll the jury back in the jury room if they wanted to continue discussions.  In about 20 minutes, the foreperson sent down a message that, yes, the jury decided to resume discussions.  On day eight of deliberations they did give a verdict in favor of the state and calling for abatement.

Ms. Costa had been the younger of the two women on the jury.  She appeared to be more outgoing and gregarious than the older woman. Before Christmas recess I had overheard Ms. Costa outside the Court House making the one-word remark, "Opinion"  to two of her fellow jury members. I speculated on the blog what she might have meant by that.  At that time they were ordered by Judge Silverstein not to discuss the case among themselves until formal deliberations began.  So, I assumed she was just making an insider sort of joke by using the term "opinion" that had been used so much in court during this lengthy trial.

Ms. Costa had been the juror who was crying the day that the foreperson announced the deadlock on the fourth day of deliberations.  In an interview with PROVIDENCE JOURNAL reporter Peter Lord Ms. Costa revealed that she was crying that day partly because she had not slept the night before due to illness and partly because the jurors didn't know what to do next given the deadlock.  She, like the other five jurors, was upset. 

The foreperson that day, I commented in this blog, appeared downcast and frustrated.  Many in the peanut gallery in court were concerned that the jury members seemed so visibly distraught.  They asked to leave early that day.

How the six jurors managed to exit the deadlock and move to a verdict by day eight of deliberations, said Ms. Costa, was by carefully following Judge Silverstein's instructions to the jury.  On the Monday before deliberations, Judge Silverstein had spent considerable time explaining the law in RI to the jurors and then providing three detailed instructions about:

• What constitutes a public nuisance in RI.  On the second day of deliberations, the jury had sent the court a question about the part of the definition of public nuisance that had to do with "unreasonable interference with the public common right."  The Judge repeated back to them his original definition of public nuisance.  The lawyers agreed that to modify the definition at that point would have changed the trial.

• What substantial contribution by a defendant or defendants would consist of.  Judge Silverstein specified that the defendant's conduct did not have to be unlawful or negligent to be considered as contributing to a public nuisance.  Moreover, what was the issue was a defendant's overall conduct or totality of behavior, not necessarily the conduct in RI per se.  The state had not shown any evidence of the four defendants' manufacturing, promoting or selling lead pigments in RI per se.

• If abatement should be ordered.  If so, the court would decide the terms and cost of that.  The two major ways of abatement are lead-safe and lead-free.  The latter requires total removal of paint from the surface and would be exceedingly costly.

Why did the jury vote that there was a public nuisance?  Ms. Costa told Mr. Lord that the jury found that based on all the children who had been poisoned by lead and all the state agencies involved in addressing that, they concluded, there was harm to the public.   Therefore, they voted, yes, there was the presence of a public nuisance.

Side Note: I am trying to track down other jurors.