White Pine District Judge Steve Dobrescu slapped down a motion for a new trial from ESP inmate Mike Fixer Newcastle on the grounds of juror misconduct this week.
In a 15 page ruling filed Monday Dobrescu found that even if the Newcastle allegations were true they did not fall into the definition of “misconduct”.
“Even if the factual allegations were true, Defendant would not be entitled to a relief. As discussed earlier, Defendant’s proffered evidence is inadmissible because most of the statements concern the jury’s mental processes during deliberations, and other statements were simply not improper.” Dobrescu wrote.
In an almost unheard of action for White Pine County, Ely Prison inmate Mike Newcastle is demanded a new trial based on juror misconduct.
Citing interviews with jurors after the case was decided Newcastle attorneys suggested Newcastle was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon simply because he was an inmate at ESP and “had to have been there for a reason”.
Originally charge with attempted murder the White Pine County Jury chose to convict Newcastle on a lessor assault charge last month.
click link for full ruling
“Juror Josie Jensen (“Ms. Jensen”) told defense council that a couple of jurors voiced a belief that Mr. Newcastle was guilty of attempted murder. In addition, Ms. Jensen indicated that there were jurors who voiced that the evidence was insufficient to show that Mr. Newcastle attempted to murder the victim. Finally, Ms. Jensen indicated that during deliberations at one or two of the jurors voiced doubt about Mr. Newcastle’s guilt and that after deliberations, the jury compromised on a verdict of guilty to the alternate charge.
Juror James Nelson (“Mr. Nelson”) told defense counsel that during deliberations he declared that Mr. Newcastle was in prison for a reason; clearly suggesting that Mr. Newcastle was guilty simply because he was incarcerated.” Reads part of the motion.
In addition to those statements the motion also claims that jurors discussed Ely State Prison and the type of inmates housed there.
According to the motion all of those topics could constitute juror misconduct and force a new trial.
In response the prosecution argued that the even if the statements were made none of them were inflammatory and the fact that Newcastle was an inmate at ESP was a well known fact presented at trial.
The 20 year old Ely State Prison is the Maximum Security prison for the state of Nevada and houses what are called the worst of the worst of the Nevada prison population. Not only have most of ESP’s inmates committed some of the most violent crimes in society they have also proven intractable inside the prison system.
Apart from the denying a new trial Dobrescu’s ruling is important for future cases involving inmates at the prison.
If the judge had rule in favor of the inmate it may have made it easier for defense attorneys to seek the legal equivalent of a ‘do over’ in every case involving an inmate at the prison.
After more than 20 years White Pine county may have begun to feel the effects of juror fatigue.
According to the White Pine County Clerks office more than ten percent of the county’s jury pool has already been called to serve this year alone to serve on trials with cases from the prison making up three of the 12 jury trials.
By comparison Elko County which has over four time the population of White Pine has used just four percent of its jury pool this year for the 19 trials it held.
The fact that despite it has four times the population but only seven more trials than White Pine can perhaps explained in three letters: E.S.P.
“As a rural resident of WP, I have been called for jury duty three times, this year. All of these cases plead out, and I did not have to make the 65-mile trek to the city, after all. In any given year, I am typically called at least four times. To date, I have yet to serve on any jury.” blogged Arla Ruggles on the High Desert Advocate’s website
“As close as I have come to serving, was sitting through the first round of jury selection for a trial involving a black inmate. As candidate after candidate was dismissed as having ties to the prison, I began to feel tremendous sympathy for the man going to trial. (I knew none of the particulars of the case.) Not only was he facing a jury biased by community experience of ‘incarceration central’, but jurors were being drawn from an almost all-white pool.
After a brief recess, the judge announced that the defendant had decided to accept at plea bargain. I did not wonder why.”
Trials cost money at least for civilians and for many legal fees may make a plea bargain look a little better. However for the inmates of ESP those costs are born by the state. An inmate may look at a trail not only as a way not only not to increase his time behind bars but also as a way to break up the monotony of a life sentence and even to make the state pay a little bit more for taking away his freedom.
And as more inmates go to trial the number of qualified jurors for a case involving ESP grows smaller every year.
For the defense the pool becomes even more limited as the number of prospective jurors who have either worked at the prison themselves or who have a close relation employed at the prison grows every years. The same holds true for the prosecution as relatives of inmates living in White Pine County also increases.
Newcastle is serving a 20 years to life sentence for the murder of his wife. The ESP inmate has also alleged that he was “tortured’ by guards after he assaulted one of them.
Okay, so, let’s see if I understand this. “We the minority think he’s innocent. But, we want the hell out of here. So, we’ll compromise on the lesser guilty offense.” That’s not misconduct???? That’s sure as hell injustice. If they’re too burned out to serve on a jury, and by serve, that means standing by your beliefs and choosing to put someone’s rights over going home sooner. Yeah, if you’re too burned out to serve, you should have said so during jury selection. What’s wrong with simply telling the judge ‘Hey, I don’t have it in me to be fair in this case. I’d be in hurry to get the hell home. I really don’t care if this dirtbag is innocent or not, if I serve, I’m just gonna wanna get it overwith.’ Chances are you won’t get chosen, but then guys like Newcastle won’t get screwed because your lazy ass compromised despite your belief that he was innocent. Those jurors wouldn’t have compromised so easily if they had been deciding the fate of a friend or family member. They didn’t do their job. Nor, it appears, did Dobrescu. He should’ve thrown out the verdict when the prosecution failed miserably to prove their case.
What’s especially sad to me is that so many inmates are going to trial for crimes real or imagined by Ely staff, whilst horrible crimes committed by staff members against inmates go completely ignored by Ely’s citizens, authorities, and government. They are rarely if ever prosecuted. And if a guard was ever brought to justice, such as one of the guards who tortured Newcastle in relation to this trial, chances are, he’d have plenty of friends on the jury and justice would never be served.
Incidentally, why didn’t Dobrescu take some sort of legal action against the employees who beat and tortured Newcastle? Or Baker, who looked the other way while it happened? Why didn’t he order the AG to arrest them, or investigate them? Or the prosecuters? They prosecuted Mike for beating a man, but sat on their asses while numerous men, in uniform, tortured Mike. Ely should be so proud.
The officers who beat Newcastle should be arrested and charged.
Mike Newcastle is a lying dirty piece of sh**. He is scum of the earth and is a great liar. Mike beat a man… Mike murdered his wife. Why then, would anyone believe his antics? IF he was tortured, and that’s a strong word not to mention highly suspect, then taxpayers money used to house this slime was well spent!