Jurors are human

It's just our warped legal system that thinks they are supposed to be robots. From today's Palm Beach Post.

FORT PIERCE — It was supposed to be a monthlong trial to finally end a seven-year dispute between a local hospital and a surgeon who claims his practice was destroyed by administrators' decision to give another group of doctors exclusive rights to use its open-heart surgery center.

But only halfway through the trial's second day Tuesday, it abruptly ended when a judge declared a mistrial.

The jurors, who attorneys took one week to seat and who expected to hear testimony for the next few weeks, were dismissed shortly after their lunch break.

Dr. Samuel Sadow filed the lawsuit against Lawnwood Regional Medical Center and Heart Institute in 1999, alleging the hospital's top administrators violated its bylaws by denying him privileges to use its heart surgery center, instead allowing only a contracted group of doctors to use it for almost four years.

But attorneys for Lawnwood didn't even get a chance Tuesday to begin laying out their defense in opening statements.

They were set to begin at 9 a.m., but the jury was kept out of the courtroom for most of the morning while attorneys argued last-minute motions. When it looked like the arguments would take longer than expected, Senior Judge John Fennelly sent the jurors on an early lunch break.

After the hour-and-a-half break, a courthouse deputy reported he heard one juror comment that they had been in the courtroom only "for six minutes that day."

He said another juror speculated the delay might be because an attorney did something improper.

Jurors are not allowed to discuss a case before deliberations.

After discovering the juror's speculation about the attorneys, Fennelly granted the Lawnwood attorney's request for a mistrial, saying: "Under the circumstances, I have no other alternative."

Afterward, Sadow's attorney, Richard Levenstein, said he would gear up to retry the case, most likely sometime next year.

Expecting jurors not to talk is about as reasonable as expecting my wife not to go to daily mass. It is just not going to happen. You put 6 or 12 people together it is just natural they will discuss why they are there or what they are doing. The only way to prevent this, is to keep the jurors separated when not in the courtroom. Enforcing the unenforcable has caused a trial to be postponed, at some expense to taxpayers.

Then most of our legal system lives in a fantasy world of their own creation. Whether its those five knuckleheads in the Kelo decision, Our state supreme court, or just the chief judge for Broward County. They all need a reality check. Better yet, vote each one you can off the bench.

Linked to- Stop the ACLU, Bullwinkle Blog,