New criminal trial ordered because DA's investigator entered the jury room during deliberations

This criminal case would otherwise be unremarkable, as the Appellate Division finds there was enough evidence to convict the defendant of robbery in the second degree when he held up two municipal water workers working the late shift for three one dollar bills. Defendant had his side of the story (he said he flashed a BB gun while asking the victims for money to buy cigars) but the jury rejected that account. The news here is not the robbery but what happened in the jury room when the jurors began deliberating. The jury room mishap gets defendant a new trial.

The case is People v. Jones, issued by the Appellate Division Third Department on February 17. The jury could not figure out how to work the digital recorder that was in the jury room. When they asked the Court for assistance, an investigator who worked for the District Attorney's office entered the room and showed the jury how to operate the recorder. When this happened, defendant's lawyer did not object to the investigator entering the jury room alone. But that was not a waiver, the Court says, because some trial errors are so fundamental to the right to a fair trial that the lawyer can even be fast asleep when the irregularity happens and the defendant can still challenge it on appeal. Not that the lawyer in this case was fast asleep, but you get the point. If you want to deprive someone of his liberty, the trial must be fundamentally fair.

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, a deliberating jury must be "under the supervision of a court officer" or "an appropriate public servant." The court order or "appropriate public servant" cannot talk to the jurors unless authorized by the court. The Third Department says, "Certainly, the People's investigator cannot be said to be an appropriate public servant to interact with the jury in the deliberation room." The Court is also troubled that we have no word of what occurred while the investigator was in the jury room. Did the investigator speak with the jurors? Were the jurors deliberating while the investigator was in the room? What the hell was going on in that room? We don't know. Hence a new trial.