Jury Gossip Could Earn Convicted Kidnapper New Trial

An Alabama man convicted of conspiracy, carjacking, and kidnapping could get a new trial because jury members speculated during deliberations whether he could figure out their identities from their license plate numbers, the Eleventh Circuit said Aug. 15.

The jury was improperly exposed to outside evidence that wasn’t “part of the evidence at trial; not a matter internal to the deliberations; and not the sort of background information jurors are expected to bring with them into the jury room,” the court said in its unpublished per curiam opinion.

The jury was deliberating Calvin Harris’s guilt when two members saw ...