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Jury in John White trial boiled with tension

BY PATRICK WHITTLE AND ERIK GERMAN | patrick.whittle@newsday.com
erik.german@newsday.com

9:55 PM EST, January 5, 2008

Inside the John White jury room, the tension got so high at one point that a juror punched a wall, and another slammed a bathroom door so hard the courtroom walls shook. Jurors asked him to go to an adjoining room to cool off. After four days, Francois Larche thought he and his fellow jurors finally had agreed on only one thing: This jury was hung.

Then, at about 8:30 p.m. that Saturday, as some jurors began packing up their things, Judge Barbara Kahn told the jurors they might have to return on Sunday, two days before Christmas, if they did not reach a verdict in the manslaughter case.

That was the moment Larche said he cracked. Believing the 10 jurors who wanted to convict White of manslaughter had prejudged the case, he nonetheless changed his vote to guilty. About 10 minutes later, the only other juror who said she was not convinced he was guilty changed her vote on the manslaughter charge, and John White's fate was sealed.

Shocked at Larche's change of heart, one juror said in an interview that they sought to make sure he was confident in his decision. "We asked him several times if he wanted to change his mind [to vote guilty] and he said yes," juror Richard Burke said. "He changed his mind over our dinner break."

Larche remembers the exchange differently, saying that he changed his vote after concluding the process was "a joke." "That's when I said, 'I'm out of here.' It was a joke. There's nothing further I can say then, 'OK, it's a mockery, let's go home.'"

Burke said Larche had reached the verdict on his own, without pressure.

Two weeks after the verdict, that exchange is emblematic of 36 hours of arguments and sometimes bitter conflicts that came down to about 25 decisive minutes -- the time it took for Larche and a second holdout, Donna Marshak, to change their votes. Interviews with four jurors in the case, including Larche and Marshak, reveal sometimes deep-seated and personal disagreements and offer a view into the often-frustrating process that can keep 12 strangers in a room together for days.

But if the defense is counting on that behavior to bolster its appeal of the White manslaughter verdict, experts say it will be a tough argument to win.

"Just about nothing that happens among jurors will be grounds for reversal," said Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University and a former federal prosecutor. "You know, buyers' remorse doesn't just happen to buyers."

After getting their instructions from Kahn, jurors retired to the room where they would spend much of the next four days. Larche said two jurors knitted during deliberations and didn't always seem to be paying attention.

And Marshak said that right from the start, "It seemed like the majority of them had made their minds up."

The jury pored over evidence on the second day, the same day it became clear that Larche and Marshak were the holdouts, some jurors said.

Burke said the jury spent the second day scrutinizing whether White had acted recklessly, which is necessary for a manslaughter conviction. "He still had plenty of time to talk with his son, put 911 on alert and take care of this situation," Burke said. "To say he is going to go out and diffuse the situation by himself is a bad choice."

Larche felt White's actions may have been justified that night, which led to his uncertainty during jury deliberations, he said.

Larche said he approached Kahn to tell her he believed the jury was deadlocked because of him. After a five-minute conference with court officials, Kahn told him it was inappropriate for him to discuss the case with the judge, Larche said.

By day three, Dec. 21, some of other jurors had clearly lost patience with Larche, Marshak said. After seeing one angry juror escorted into an adjacent room to cool off during deliberations, Larche said the scene reminded him of "the penalty box in NHL ice hockey."

Marshak said she could sense the growing anger against Larche and herself for refusing to budge: "They started the day with [Larche and another juror] going at it right away," calling each other names, she said.

At one point, jurors requested the definition of the juror's oath.

"We were trying to do our job and we wanted to be very clear about what our job was," forewoman Maureen Steigerwald told Newsday on Sunday, Dec. 23, less than 24 hours after the verdict.

Jurors left the deliberating room on the third day prepared to tell Kahn they believed they had a hung jury, jurors said.