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http://www.insidedenver.com/news/0811dism7.shtml
Rocky Mountain News
August 11, 2000
Case dropped against juror in methamphetamine trial
By Karen Abbott, Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Feedback: letters@denver-rmn.com
Prosecutors have dropped their case against Laura Kriho, a holdout juror who refused to
convict a man in a methamphetamine possession case.
Kriho was charged with contempt of court in Gilpin County in 1996 after another juror told
the judge that Kriho had urged the jury to acquit the defendant because she believed the
law wasn't fair. The case ended in a mistrial.
The Kriho case drew attention to a national debate over whether jurors are supposed to
follow the law or their own conscience when the two are in conflict.
Kriho also was charged with contempt for failing to disclose during jury selection that
she had supported the liberalization of hemp laws and that she had received a deferred
judgment in the 1980s for possession of LSD. A deferred judgment means a conviction is
removed from a record if the defendant stays out of trouble for a specified time.
Kriho contended no one asked her any questions during jury selection that required her to
disclose those facts.
Then-1st Judicial District Judge Henry Nieto found Kriho guilty of contempt in 1997 and
fined her $1,200.
The Colorado Court of Appeals overturned part of Nieto's ruling last year. The appeals
court said Nieto should not have allowed evidence of
secret jury room deliberations.
But the appeals court said Kriho could be tried again for contempt on the charge of
withholding information during jury selection.
District Attorney Dave Thomas decided to drop the case against Kriho, saying the evidence
had grown too old and memories of the evidence too faint.
"I am so glad this is finally over," Kriho said in a statement. "I hope
that by fighting and winning this persecution that I have helped protect other jurors from
going through what I did."
Rocky Mountain News
400 W. Colfax
Denver, CO 80204
Phone: (303) 892-5000
Fax: (303) 892-5499
Email: letters@denver-rmn.com
Web: www.denver-rmn.com |
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