Outside material brought by juror aborts Trial for Bruce Lerhmann
A juror was found to have carried a research paper on sexual assault into the jury chamber, resulting in the dismissal of the whole jury in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann.
On Thursday morning, the ACT supreme court heard that Lehrmann's trial must be halted because a jury had undertaken research outside the courtroom, which juries are instructed not to do.
The court was informed that the juror had presented a research paper that aimed to quantify the number of bogus complaints and investigate the motivations for filing them. The use of the study paper violated at least 17 directives from the trial judge prohibiting jurors from conducting their own research or enquiry.
Unintentionally, a sheriff's deputy spotted the paper while performing standard jury room cleaning. The sheriff's deputy accidentally touched one of the juror's plastic folders and discovered the title page of a research paper among the papers.
The chief judge, Lucy McCallum, stated that she had no choice but to dismiss one of the twelve jurors who have been deliberating for the past week. She stated that this meant she must dismiss them all.
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