A judge found Friday that a jury's misconduct in a homicide trial last fall wasn't prejudicial enough to throw out its guilty verdict, putting a woman back on track to be sent to prison for life.
In October, a jury convicted Brittany Baier, 29, of killing her live-in boyfriend, Terrance J. Tucker, 27, on Dec. 20, 2016, at the couple's West Allis home. The day after the verdict was reached, a clerk found copies of a pamphlet, "Behind Closed Doors: A Guide for Jury Deliberations," in the deliberation room. It had not been issued by the court.
Baier's attorneys were concerned that the booklet may have confused jurors about the burden of proof regarding Baier's battered woman defense. Prosecutors had the burden of disproving Baier's claim beyond a reasonable doubt.
Last month, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mark Sanders heard arguments on the issue and decided to postpone Baier's sentencing and question jurors in January about how the pamphlet got to the jury room and if might have influenced deliberations.
One by one, the jurors came before Sanders for questioning on Thursday afternoon. Mary Lindquist told him she had found the guidebook on the website of the American Judicature Society, and decided to bring it to the second day of deliberations because she felt the first day was "chaotic," and unstructured, and that people were talking past each other.
She even got someone at jury management to make copies, she said, then handed them out to the rest of the jury.
But other jurors said they only glanced at or skimmed the pamphlet or didn't read it at all because it seemed to cover things they'd already done, such as picking a foreman and holding a preliminary vote.
The foreman, Scott Campbell, told Sanders it did cross his mind that the pamphlet might be "outside information" the jury had been instructed not to consider, but that everyone seemed to have paid it so little attention that he did not feel it important to bring it to Sanders' attention.
On Friday morning, Sanders concluded that all the jurors had violated their oaths — Lindquist for bringing in the outside material and the others for not reporting it — and that he even considered sanctioning them. But in the end, he was convinced that the pamphlet was not prejudicial to Baier because it didn't contradict the evidence or the law, and the jurors were well-meaning.
Baier faces mandatory life in prison at her new sentencing date, March 9.