By Steve Lash
The Daily Record
BALTIMORE — A Maryland appeals court has overturned a first-degree felony-murder conviction because a deliberating juror had conducted an online search of scientific terms related to how blood flows after death.
The juror’s Wikipedia search denied Allan Jake Clark a fair trial because “the right to an impartial jury embraces the right to have the case decided exclusively on the evidence that is produced in open court,” the Court of Special Appeals held in an unreported opinion.
Thus, Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Paul F. Harris Jr was wrong not to have declared a mistrial upon discovering that juror Alfred Rudolph Schuler had looked up the terms “livor mortis” and “algor mortis” on Wikipedia, an online reference site, and printed out the pages, the appellate court stated in its 3-0 decision.
The court’s decision marks the second time this year it has reversed a conviction because a deliberating juror had consulted the Internet. In May, the court ruled in Wardlaw v. State that a mistrial should have been granted because a juror had looked up the term “oppositional defiant disorder. “
The Baltimore City Circuit Court jury had convicted Zarzine Wardlaw of second-degree assault.
As it had in Wardlaw, the Court of Special Appeals held in Clark’s case that the trial judge had erroneously allowed jury deliberations to continue after the Web-surfing juror said he could set the information he found aside and evaluate the evidence as it was presented in open court.
"[A]n adverse influence on a single juror compromises the impartiality of the entire jury panel,” Judge Charles E. Moylan Jr. wrote for the appellate court in overturning Clark’s conviction and 30-year prison sentence. “Where there has been juror misconduct there is a strong presumption that the impartiality of the jury has been compromised. “
Assistant public defender George Burns, who argued Clark’s case on appeal, said online research by jurors - though prohibited by judges - has become “an increasing problem,” particularly in cases with technical and scientific terms, such as livor and algor mortis.
“People do it so naturally,” Burns said of the ubiquitous searches of online sites. “If they have a question, they go on the Internet. “
As a result, judges have taken to instructing jurors, “Don’t go on the Internet,” added Burns, an adjunct University of Maryland School of Law professor who teaches a course on appellate advocacy.
In its decision, the Court of Special Appeals said Schuler found online a detailed description of post-mortem blood activity, an important and unresolved issue in the state’s case against Clark, who stood accused of having beaten a man to death in April 2007.
The court said the presence or absence of livor mortis - a settling of blood in the lower portion of a dead body - can help determine the time and location of death. Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature after death, can also help determine the time of death, the court added.
The time and place of death “were never satisfactorily answered [at trial], and the subject of livor mortis and algor mortis could readily have figured significantly into any theorizing about the answers,” wrote Moylan, a retired judge who was sitting by special assignment.
Judges James P. Salmon and James R. Eyler joined Moylan’s opinion.
Brian S. Kleinbord, chief of the criminal appeals division at the Maryland attorney general’s office, said the office is still examining the decision and has not decided whether to seek review by the Court of Appeals.
Assistant Attorney General Susannah Prucka argued the case for the state.
After the jurors’ first day of deliberations in March 2008, a bailiff found two documents in the jury room: one regarding livor mortis and the other algor mortis. Harris interviewed each of the jurors individually the next morning to determine what they knew about the documents.
Only one juror, Schuler, knew about the documents. Under questioning from Assistant Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Frank J. Ragione, Clark’s public defender Karl Gordon and Harris, Schuler admitted having surfed the Web and printing out the documents.
“I did go to Wikipedia and I looked up the meaning of ‘lividity,’” Schuler told his questioners, referring to the general term for blood flow after death. “To me that wasn’t research. It was a definition. “
Harris permitted deliberations to continue after being assured by Schuler that he would focus only on the evidence from the trial.
The jury subsequently convicted Clark in the beating death of Michael Evans Sr., a fellow homeless man whose body was found on an air conditioner at 514 Crain Highway in Glen Burnie on the morning of April 5, 2007.
Clark was sentenced to life in prison with all but 30 years suspended and five years of supervised release.
Copyright 2009 Dolan Media Newswires