A Colorado woman who served on a murder-trial jury a decade ago will spend 10 days behind bars, and the man she helped convict will get another trial.
That's the resolution of a long-fought case in Grand Junction, Colorado, over the juror's response to a questionnaire.
The juror said she wasn't a victim of domestic violence but later admitted she was.
Channel 9 in Denver reported a judge sentenced Marilyn Charlesworth to 10 days in jail, a move believed to be unprecedented in Colorado for a juror.
Charlesworth was among 12 jurors for the Michael Blagg trial in 2004. Blagg was convicted of killing his wife, Jennifer Blagg, in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison. The couple's young daughter, Abby Blagg, never has been found.
But Blagg is now scheduled for a new trial.
WND reported Charlesworth was found in contempt by Judge Jane Tidball. The Grand Junction Sentinel said Charlesworth "willfully" gave the wrong answer to a juror questionnaire.
Daniel Shaffer, Charlesworth’s attorney, argued she didn't consider herself to be a domestic violence victim when she filled out the questionnaire in February 2004.
She was asked, on the form, "Have you, a family member, or close friend ever been involved in domestic violence?"
She responded no.
But in 2013 she appeared at a Grand Junction City Council meeting to protest a city councilman-elect who had been accused of hitting his girlfriend.
She said she "was a victim of domestic violence for 10 years," and her words were noticed. She's explained in 2004 she didn't consider herself a victim and had only recently made that determination based on alleged mental abuse from two ex-husbands.
Blagg's defense counsel filed a motion, and the guilty verdict was overturned with Judge David Bottger's conclusion that her "deliberative failure to disclose her domestic violence involvement makes this not a close question at all."
The office of prosecutor Pete Hautzinger had helped defend Charlesworth earlier from accusations from the public defender of vision troubles and a failure to disclose the use of a prescription drug, none of which rose to the level of being an issue for the judge.
She also was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and will report to the Mesa County jail July 12.
There were, however, some concerns about the result.
"The idea that it's OK to investigate jurors' pasts months, if not years, after they did their juror service is troubling," Hautzinger told KUSA-TV in Denver.
A friend told the station that the understanding Charlesworth has of domestic violence now is far from what she understood then.
"It's very subjective, how you feel when you go through it, how you would answer that question," said the friend, Anne Landman.
The station reported Amy Pohl of the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence said victims frequently don't understand clearly what domestic violence is, "because they weren't being physically abused."
And Pohl argued the wording on the questionnaire was inadequate, because there was no definition, leaving "a lot of gray area."
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