Boulder Weekly
by Jay Hauser
January 30, 1997
When Gilpin County juror Laura Kriho decided to follow her heart instead of the letter of the law when deciding a drug possession case last year, she found herself at the center of a maelstrom of controversy over jury nullification. With her one vote, Kriho hung the jury and brought contempt of court charges upon herself. Now, nine months later and almost four months after her trial, Kriho is still unsure of her fate.
Why?
Well, according to the clerk for First Judicial
Court Judge Henry Nieto, who heard the evidence during Kriho's Oct. 1-2
bench trial for contempt of court, a verdict in the case has not been
reached because "the judge is real busy. He'll get to it when he gets
to it. He has to take care of a lot of things, like other trials."
Too busy. Strange, considering Nieto denied a continuance motion by Kriho's attorney Paul Grant in September, saying the issues in the case would be easy to decide.
Or it might be because Judge Kenneth Barnhill who originally heard Colorado v. Michelle Brannon (the case which Kriho heard) retired Friday, Jan. 17, and with his retirement avoids any possible official sanctions that could result from his move to put a juror on trail for her beliefs.
Regardless of his reasons, Nieto's failure to render a verdict in the case probably won't cost him, even though a specific state statute says it should.
Kriho was brought up on contempt charges
by prosecuting attorney Jim Stanley because she allegedly failed to point
out that she did not believe in drug laws during jury selection for
the trial of a 19-year-old charged with possession of methamphetamine.
But, her attorney Paul Grant says, to charge and try Kriho is wrongheaded
because his client was never specifically asked questions about her feelings
in regard to drug possession laws.
More importantly, he says, jurors haven't been held accountable for their decisions since before the Revolutionary War.
"This case is bizarre. Jurors haven't
been prosecuted for their deliberations in the jury room for hundreds of
years. These guys want to reverse that. These guys want to go back to the
17th
century. They put her on trial for her political associations for her beliefs
... for her philosophy. None of that is the court's business," Grant
says.
Now almost four months since the conclusion
of the contempt trial, Grant and Kriho are both wondering whether or not
she is facing punishment for standing up for what she believes in. The
U.S. Constitution states every citizen has the right to a fair and speedy
trial (including a verdict), yet Nieto has yet to come to a decision on
his client's fate, Grant says.
"It's not supposed to take this long. Appeals can take months or years to come to a verdict, but not trials. The statute says a judge must render a verdict in 90 days. But if he doesn't render the verdict within that time frame, it doesn't mean the verdict won't count when it is issued."
And in an interesting twist, Nieto may be putting his salary on the line by missing the 90-day deadline. According to a little-known state statute, if any judge of a Colorado district court fails to render a judgment in a case he has taken under advisement within 90 days, as Nieto has, he or she must forfeit their quarterly salary. In Nieto's case, that equals a cool $20,000 or more.
Whether or not anyone will actually enforce the statute, which has been on the books since before 1912, is up to ... well, that's an interesting question, too.
In the opinion of Richard Collins, associate dean of the law school at the University of Colorado, the statute is akin to an unloaded gun: it can keep judges in line through menace, but cannot do any real damage.
"The mystery of this statute is, who
is meant to enforce it? By its terms, the interested people - that is Kriho
and her opponents, the people all excited about this -- have no right to
enforce (the statute) because their interests are unaffected by it. So
the question is then, who does have a right to enforce it?" Collins
says. "If someone decides to suddenly say that because this Kriho
case is really a political football and there are all kinds of people yelling
and screaming about it and the
Internet is just smoking with it, therefore we'll penalize this judge even
though we don't penalize any other judges -- that just isn't going to fly."
If the past is any indication, Nieto will
be able sit on Kriho's case as long as he wants to without fear of financial
sanction, according to a staffer in the state government. "Generally
what has happened when people have attempted to enforce the statute in
the past, they've contacted the Treasurer's Office and they have received
back... the statement that the (statute) has never been enforced because
of concerns over the constitutionality of it," says Kim Coles of the
state
Judicial Department.
What will the verdict be when it is finally handed down by Judge Nieto? Grant says he doesn't want to speculate because, as he puts it, he doesn't have a crystal ball, but, "If she is convicted, we'll appeal, if she's acquitted, we'll celebrate." Neither Kriho or Stanley will comment on the specifics of the case. Grant says his client does not want to say anything to the media while the case is still undecided. Stanley, like Nieto, seems to be too busy. "All the information -- files, transcripts, legal documents - is available at the Gilpin County Courthouse," he says brusquely before hanging up.
Perhaps, Grant suggests, the Kriho trial is a sign of things to come in Gilpin County. Judge Barnhill recently brought up a lawyer on contempt of court charges, Grant says. Judge Nieto will hear the case, he adds.
"They are going to hold that trial without a jury too. Now we're putting attorneys on trial in Gilpin County. It's very interesting."
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