1.Juror Inquiry into Blu-Ray Evidence
74 linesJune 4, 2019 (Whereupon, the jury reported to the jury room at 9:00 a.m. and resumed deliberations.) (Whereupon, the Foreperson entered the courtroom with a question.)
THE COURT: What is the need for the Blu-Ray, what else do you need?
JUROR: The transcripts of the phone, we couldn't read it on the computer, we need the Blu-Ray player in order to see it.
THE COURT: I have a concern about that. I remember some of that coming in but there was some, a lot of other files on there that perhaps weren't introduced into evidence.
JUROR: We only looked at the phone records.
THE COURT: Like which phone records. Tell me specifically, like phone numbers and calls and stuff?
JUROR: Yes, it was the Google searches and the text messages.
THE COURT: Are y'all still dealing with those?
JUROR: No, we are listening to the interview in the cop car on the way back.
THE COURT: Okay. I know that one.
RICK HUBBARD: And if Your Honor wants to take the Blu-Ray back out.
JUROR: We are done with the phone records.
THE COURT: Okay. Let's get that back out. The lawyers want to make certain what was on that disk or what was not. Because there is confusion, believe it or not, with all of the evidence.
JUROR: Really?
THE COURT: You know, was this in or was this in? Because there's copies of copies of copies and it's kind of hard to follow sometimes. Can we fish the Blu-Ray player and that disk back out from you and so we can see what it is?
JUROR: Absolutely.
THE COURT: We will give it a look. Thank you.
JUROR: No problem.
CASEY SECOR: Can she step outside the door there just for a second?
THE COURT: Hold her there real quick, the lawyers want to ask me something. They can't talk to you like I can. (WHEREUPON, the Foreperson is excused from the courtroom.)
CASEY SECOR: She said they looked at the Google searches.
THE COURT: I didn't know they had a Blu-Ray player back there.
CASEY SECOR: I know you didn't.
BOYD YOUNG: I didn't either. That's why I looked at you when I heard that they did.
CASEY SECOR: So she said that they looked at the --
THE COURT: Phone records is how she described them.
CASEY SECOR: -- phone records and Google searches. Obviously, we didn't ask her to elaborate. I mean, I wish we had another copy of it so we could see that if you click on Google searches what comes up.
(Whereupon, a bench conference was held.)
THE COURT: All right. Bring her back in here.
(WHEREUPON, the Foreperson enters the courtroom.)
THE COURT: How long did y'all have to fish around on that Blu-Ray disk?
JUROR: We only looked at it for maybe two to three minutes. We were just looking at some of the dates on the text messages and Google searches.
THE COURT: Okay. The Google searches you were looking at, what was the nature of those?
JUROR: The extra States to go or the Countries to go to that don't have extraditing laws and stuff like that.
THE COURT: Anything else? I mean, without pulling the disk out and looking at it. They know more about it than I do because they researched it. I'm in the same position you are. It was presented to me and it has this information on it. Some disks that the lawyers had was like this has 10,000 entries, but only a hundred of them we're only interested in presenting to the jury. So here's the ten, here's the 10,000, so we've got copies --
JUROR: Right.
THE COURT: And I think the confusion for me is to whether the one with the 10,000 entries got to the jury and maybe shouldn't have.
JUROR: Oh, okay. I don't know. We only looked at like 9/4 or 9/6 timeframe as far as the dates.
THE COURT: Okay. Can we get the Blu-Ray player and look at that disk and verify that so the lawyers are comfortable with what y'all have seen?
JUROR: Okay.
THE COURT: You looked on the September 4th and 5th?
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: Any other dates?
JUROR: No. I mean, I only looked at it for like a couple of seconds. The IT person looked at it more in-depth than I did.
THE COURT: Okay. Anything else?
CASEY SECOR: No, sir. Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. I want to get the disk and look at it. I'll probably bring it back to you, okay.
JUROR: Okay.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
JUROR: No problem. (WHEREUPON, the Foreperson was excused from the courtroom.)
(Whereupon, a bench conference was held.)
THE COURT: Go get me Ms. Miller and the IT guy. I think it's Mr. Lewis, but I'm just guessing. I'd like to talk to them. (WHEREUPON, the Foreperson and another Juror entered the courtroom.)
THE COURT: I knew you were the IT guy. Come over here. The lawyers want to listen, I don't want to talk to the whole courtroom. I am involved with y'all, that is why I am talking kind of quiet. That disk has a lot of other information on it from a couple of other cases. The search y'all made on that disk, the Blu-Ray disk, it had -- it was a phone extraction and other stuff?
JUROR: Correct.
THE COURT: The date range y'all were looking at, what were y'all looking at, the date range?
JUROR: I think it was from -- the American X. We were looking at--
THE COURT: This is all September?
JUROR: September and August.
THE COURT: September and August?
JUROR: Uh-huh.
THE COURT: Okay. And tell me the subject matter of what y'all were looking for. Y'all looking for when he downloaded the video?
JUROR: We were looking for that and we were looking for, like med school and we were looking at the TD Bank. I think that was it.
JUROR: The Countries without the laws.
THE COURT: Okay. The date range was August/September. Okay. Anything else?
BOYD YOUNG: I think that's --
THE COURT: I'm comfortable -- it's -- Blu-Ray, that disk has a lot of stuff on it and if it's supposed to be redacted and it didn't -- I mean, we've got a ton of information and evidence in the case. So that was the concern. The guy that put it together is the one that kind of noticed it, it has got some other case, stuff from other cases that we don't want y'all to be concerned about another case. Like wait a minute, what is this going on here.
JUROR: What we saw was the same as what was presented. So I didn' think that there was anything else on there.
THE COURT: Okay. Fair enough. All right. Y'all get back to work. Thank y'all. And y'all haven't done anything wrong. Somebody realized that disk may have everything on it. So, thank you. (WHEREUPON, the Foreperson and Juror exit the courtroom.)
THE COURT: We talked to the Foreperson -- and that was Mr. Lewis, the other Juror. He was the young man who works with Department of Public Safety. And he's the guy I thought was going to be the IT guy for the computer. He knows that sort of thing. Now, having inquired as to the relevant search term of time, August and September, as well as subject matter, he named all three, the video, the extradition laws and the -- what was the --
SHAWN GRAHAM: The American History --
THE COURT: No, I got the video. There's one more thing they looked at.
RICK HUBBARD: Med --
THE COURT: Med school.
CASEY SECOR: And TD Bank.