Correa triple-murder trial loses three jurors in as many days

John Penney, The Bulletin
·3 min read

NEW LONDON – The jury pool chosen to hear the case of a Hartford man accused of murdering three members of a Griswold family lost two of its number on Tuesday, including one who was dismissed after being accused of discussing evidence presented earlier in the day with her peers.

New London Superior Court Judge Hunchu Kwak dismissed the individual after another juror on the Sergio Correa case submitted a note informing the court that some of the conversations happening by members outside of the courtroom were edging “dangerously close” to prohibited areas.

According to the whistle-blower juror, there was a “lot of chatter” from one particular juror about the way those texts were presented.

“I don’t want a mistrial, to go for weeks just so it’s thrown out,” she said.

Sergio Correa, sits with his attorneys from the public defender's office in this file photo.
Sergio Correa, sits with his attorneys from the public defender's office in this file photo.

Jurors in cases like Correa's are instructed before the proceedings begin not to watch or listen to any media accounts of the case and are told not to discuss what they hear in court with anyone – not even their fellow jurors.

Once all evidence is presented and the judge gives final deliberation instructions, a jury can begin discussing the case in an effort to reach a verdict.

The issue of possible improper discussions among jurors came after hours of testimony on text messages police said they obtained from Correa’s phone conversations. The messages included dozens of back-and-forth texts between a number associated with Correa’s phone and 21-year-old Matthew Lindquist, who prosecutors say was killed by Correa on Dec. 19, 2017.

Correa is also accused of killing Matthew Lindquist’s parents, Kenneth and Janet Lindquist.

FBI Special Agent James Wines spent more than an hour reading the texts, a process required before the information can be formally considered evidence. The texts were preceded by time-stamps formatted in “UTC,” or universal time. Those times needed to have five hours subtracted from them to align with Eastern Standard Time measurements, the time zone in Connecticut.

When questioned by Kwak, along with Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen Carney and Joe Lopez, Correa’s lawyer, the accused juror admitted there was a “little bit of discussion” about the evidence during the lunch break that involved “four or five” jurors.

She recalled saying “there should be a better system” of presenting such evidence, specifically citing the text record time-stamps.

Lopez argued the juror should be excused as she did not initially appear to be forthcoming about the violations and, after only three days into the case, was already engaging in inappropriate discussions. Carney agreed, but voiced concern over the “rapid pace” the case seemed to be losing jurors.

'Rapid' loss of jurors

The initial jury pool of 12 jurors and 6 alternates was chosen over a period of weeks. One juror was excused on Friday, the first day of the trial, for a job conflict. Another was excused before proceedings began on Tuesday for what called a Kwak also called a “conflict.”

The third juror loss leaves three alternate jurors in place.

After dismissing the juror, several other jurors were questioned about any evidence-related conversations they might have heard or engaged in. While most jurors denied hearing or taking part in such discussions, others recalled overhearing their peers mention confusion over the text messaging format, while others said they heard complaints about the “tedious” nature of that evidence presentation.

Earlier in the day, Eric Lindquist, son of Janet and Kenneth Lindquist and brother to Matthew, was visibly upset about how the text messages were presented to the jury stating it was too difficult to see or understand in an overhead projector format.

John Penney can be reached at jpenney@norwichbulletin.com or at (860) 857-6965

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Juror in Griswold triple-murder case dismissed for improper talk

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