A juror in Pueblo told the judge she could not be objective, could not mentally function during the murder trial, and cried to a court employee while saying the defendant was “just a kid.” The judge refused to remove her from the jury, and last week the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with that decision.

“I think the trial court rightly viewed the feeling of being emotionally overwhelmed as not the same as bias,” Ryan Crane, senior assistant attorney general, told the appeals court during oral argument.

In June 2018, a jury convicted Tyler Eugene Richards of first degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault. Richards, a private security officer and bounty hunter, abducted the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend in December 2016. Richards then choked his ex-girlfriend inside her home. Police later found the body of Bradley Trager in a field, stabbed to death.

Richards, then 23, maintained he was merely trying to turn in Trager on a warrant, and was defending himself against Trager. He received a life sentence in prison.

The day after jury selection finished for Richards’s trial, Pueblo County District Court Judge William D. Alexander received a note from a juror identified as L.C. She told Alexander that attorneys never questioned her during jury selection and she “[didn’t] understand how I became a juror.” 

“The magnitude of this trial is making me sick to my stomach and I know I can’t physically or mentally function for the entire trial or even be objective,” she continued. “I know that I can’t handle the stress of this trial.”

The Sixth Amendment ensures the right to an impartial jury. Jury selection, which involves a process called “voir dire,” helps ascertain whether jurors are so biased that they cannot evaluate the evidence fairly.

Alexander waited until the end of the day to speak with the parties about the note. He explained he had observed L.C. during the trial and, in his judgment, she had not “expressed anything that suggested stress.”

“I think we have to wait and see how things pan out,” said the judge. “Just keep an eye. I don’t think it would be right to put her on the spot or ask her about it at this point.”

Richards’s attorney objected, asking for a follow-up with L.C. Alexander said he understood, but when trials get underway, the experience is “less traumatic than people think it’s going to be.”

Two days later, the jury commissioner emailed Alexander to relay an interaction with L.C.

“She said the night of Jury selection she threw up on the way home and all night. She again talked about ‘nobody questioning her,'” the email read. “[T]hen she kept on saying and started to cry, ‘he is just a kid, you know . . . he is just a kid.'”

The trial proceeded. But prior to jury deliberations, Alexander called L.C. in for questioning with both parties present. The judge informed her he had received the letter and the jury commissioner’s email. He acknowledged the emotional nature of murder cases and said crying or having difficulty sleeping is normal.

“So I have a question I just want to ask you,” Alexander continued. “Just need a quick yes or no answer at this point. Is there any reason that you cannot reach a fair and impartial verdict just based on the testimony and evidence or the lack thereof that’s presented at trial and the law that I provide you with?”

No, L.C. responded. The judge again asked if L.C. could be impartial in her verdict. She indicated she would. Alexander then allowed her to join jury deliberations.

The defense attorney asked that L.C. be replaced with an alternate juror, believing the “dynamic” Alexander had created meant “none of these jurors are going to question you.” Alexander replied that in his observation, L.C. was fit to serve.

During oral argument before a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals, the government received questions about how Alexander handled the revelation about the juror’s feelings.

“What’s the reason for delay?” asked Judge John Daniel Dailey. “Why did the judge only ask two questions ultimately…and prohibit the defense counsel from asking other questions?”

The court “needed to keep things under a reasonable degree of control,” Crane responded. “If you let defense counsel start asking questions and then the prosecution or the court saying, ‘tell us a little more about how you’re feeling,’ you just get into all kinds of things that can destroy the impartiality and the sanctity of the jury’s deliberations.”

Ivy Taylor, representing Richards at the appellate court, criticized Alexander for failing to allow for an exploration of jurors’ potential biases.

“This kind of created this atmosphere where jurors, counsel said, were not able to communicate things that could be an issue during trial, like this issue,” she said.

The panel decided Alexander had made no error in handling the potentially biased juror.

“While it may have been preferable to have addressed the issue immediately, judges are aware that jurors may seek to avoid service, minimize their ability to serve, or have exceptionally tender consciences,” wrote Dailey in the court’s unpublished March 11 opinion.

“To be sure, L.C.’s assurances were given in a rather abrupt and cryptic exchange with the court,” he conceded, but the other evidence, including Alexander’s observations of L.C. during trial, supported the determination that L.C. could fairly decide on Richards’s guilt.

The panel rejected most of Richards’s other arguments, but did order his resentencing on some convictions. The case is People v. Richards.