Watch what you say during jury duty!

[You Are Guilty]

What is the name of your state?NY

Jury panelist's slur costs him 1G

BY HELEN PETERSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A financial planner who delivered his own verdict during jury selection - calling a carjacking defendant a "[highlight]scumbag[/highlight]" - was fined $1,000 yesterday but will avoid joining the target of his ire in jail.

Stephen Caruso, 27, said his outburst this month, directed at the later convicted Robert Sanford, was prompted by his own experience as a robbery victim. He apologized to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice William Wetzel, who held him in contempt of court and issued the fine.

"I just wanted to apologize again to the court," Caruso told the judge. "For a moment I forgot where I was."

The incident started when Caruso, of Sutton Place, was asked if he could be impartial if picked to hear the case of Sanford, 59. Caruso said that as a crime victim, he could not be fair. When pressed further by the judge, he called Sanford a scumbag.

Wetzel, who could have slapped Caruso with up to 30 days in jail, said he couldn't condone conduct "reducing this court to some kind of circus."

"It is about an insulting and demeaning invective spewed at a defendant," Wetzel said.

Caruso's attorney Norman Steiner said his client had been robbed at gunpoint three times in one year while a student in New Orleans.

Sanford, later found guilty of kidnapping by a jury that did not include Caruso, faces up to 25 years in prison.

So much for truth being an absolute defense

 

[rmet4nzkx]

Some people will go to any length to avoid jury duty.
Let's see, the prosecuter has immunity and can call the defendent a scumbag, but not a potential jurior? It does show, bias.