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A distraught juror rang Napier
District Court the morning after finding a man guilty of rape, asking if she
could change her mind, the Court of Appeal has been told. Her belated misgivings did not
sway the court. In a second conversation with the
district court employee, the juror said she thought some jurors had made a
hasty decision on the rape charge to "get out of the place" after
considering the case till midnight. "She told the court attendant
that, if the jury had been able to stay overnight, she felt the result of the
rape charge would have been different," the Court of Appeal said in its
decision on the appeal of James Boycee Caleb Ropotini. The court dismissed his appeal against
conviction on one charge of rape and two of indecent assault on a girl under
12 years. Ropotini is serving a
6<<1/2>>-year jail term. The three appeal judges said it
was important that once a verdict was delivered, and jurors had agreed in
court that it was the verdict of them all, that the verdict should be final.
"Though jurors sometimes have belated misgivings about a verdict, the
crucial issue is whether the verdict was the unanimous verdict of the jury at
the time it was delivered in court." There was no basis for the
perceptions of one juror after a trial to call into question a unanimous
verdict delivered in court. Staff looking after the jury
during its deliberation in March said jurors did not ask to go to a hotel for
the night. Secrecy of deliberations means the
court wants to strictly control contact with jurors. Ropotini's
lawyer wanted the Court of Appeal to appoint an independent lawyer to ask the
juror what she had been told about overnight accommodation, but the court
refused. The lawyer said the verdicts might
have been unsafe because of juror fatigue. But the Court of Appeal judges
said the juror's first conversation with the court staff member was not that
any pressure had been placed on the jury, or that there was any misunderstanding
about the availability of overnight accommodation. In the second
conversation, the juror said she thought if the jury had been able to stay
overnight the rape result might have been different. The Court of Appeal said
that did not mean the jury had not agreed on the verdict. |
