A New Jersey trial judge did the right thing in vacating a cocaine conviction based on a juror’s comment that “defense attorneys can be ass-holes,” an appeals court says.
Burlington City, N.J., police officer John Fine, a prosecution witness in the case, State v. Taylor, said juror S.W. uttered those words to him in a courthouse elevator. Fine told a detective in the prosecutor’s office right away but the detective waited hours, until after the verdict, to tell the prosecutor, who told the judge, John Almeida.
