Page 27 - The People of the State of New York v. M. Robert Neulander - Brief for Amicus Curiae in Support of Defendant-Respondent

of
21.

suspect herself.

instruction to be sure of
sophisticated concept of
juror misconduct," 570 P

reasonable doubt.
prejudice arising from these kinds of
and resisted producing her cell phone.
potential subjective inflm.mce on other
22
jurors.

Court held that "[i]t is well settled that a presumption of
guilt, rather than an imprecation to convict.
its inappropriate nature, as even the trial court seemed to recognize.
than that it "was just my dad being [my] dad," A-20, whatever that means.
Juror 12 gave no explanation of
held "ambiguous, innocuous and irrelevant," as the People allege.
A.24.
570 P.2d at 1053-54.
a text terming Mr. Neulander "the scary man"; and Juror 12's receipt of

There is no way for the People to rebut the presumption of
expressing shock that Jenna Neulander, a critical defense witness, was not a
a text
testimony that she forgot about the text before it was later extracted from her phone can be
6 The People posit that the statement, "Make sure he's guilty!," could possibly be read as an
case with a friend, ignoring the "basic admonition not to talk about the case with
improper communications, which cannot be
the statement other
In an analogous case, People v. Fox, 172 A.D.2d 218, a juror discussed the
People's Br. at
ignored. The very fact that she saw fit to delete this text clearly demonstrated her consciousness
.2d at 1052, and that the government could not rebut this
People's Br. at 27-28. It is
prejudice arises from any
had engaged in serious misconduct when she tried selectively to delete these texts,
highly unlikely, however, that Juror 12's father would have texted her a message concerning the
presumption, because it was based on the juror's possible subjective beliefs and/or
Similarly, in this case, the clock cannot be turned back on the admonition by
Moreover, Juror 12's
Juror 12's father to "Make sure he's guilty"; 6 on Juror 12's acquiescent response to
This is particularly true since Juror 12 demonstrated her understanding that she