JUROR'S FOUR-YEAR COURT BATTLE ENDS

A district judge dismissed a contempt of court charge against Laura Kriho, a Nederland juror accused of withholding personal information during jury selection in a 1996 Gilpin County drug case.

Judge Thomas Woodford's Aug. 4 dismissal ended a four-year battle that focused national attention on the concept of a juror's right to vote their conscience regardless of the law, which is what Kriho said she did.

Kriho was convicted of contempt of court in February 1997. The Colorado Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in April 1999.

However, the appeals court ruled prosecutors could retry Kriho because she failed to volunteer information during jury selection about a 12-year-old deferred judgment for possession of LSD that was supposed to be wiped from her record.

"I hope that by fighting and winning against this persecution that I have helped protect other jurors from going through what I did," Kriho said. "Jurors should be free to deliberate and to vote however they deem fit, without fear of later prosecution if they vote against the government's case."

Under the idea of jury nullification, a juror may vote to acquit a defendant, not based on the evidence presented but upon the jurors moral conviction that the law under which the case is prosecuted is wrong.

Kriho made headlines in 1996 when she was charged with contempt after serving on a Gilpin County jury and, as the lone holdout, forced a mistrial in the drug case.

"Most people are intimidated by the (jury selection) process," Kriho's attorney, Paul Grant, said. "They don't volunteer to anything. They just answer questions. She didn't even want to be a juror."

Grant said his client was never specifically asked about her association with the Colorado Hemp Initiative Project, a hemp advocacy group.

During jury deliberations in the 1996 case, Kriho had obtained information from the Internet on what she believed to be the penalty for possession of methamphetamine and showed it to other jurors.

The defense called a mistrial after another juror sent a note to Judge Kenneth E. Barnhill asking whether a juror could be disqualified for looking up the potential sentence. The note also said the juror was saying court is not the place to decide drug charges.

District Judge Henry E. Neito found Kriho in contempt of court and ordered her to pay a $1,200 fine in a plea bargain deal that kept her from serving 90 days in jail.

Kriho said she is still waiting to for the court to return her money.

Some legal experts have said Kriho's conviction was justified because jurors are required to follow judge's instructions.

State Attorney General Ken Salazar in November 1999 asked the Colorado Supreme Court to reinstate Kriho's conviction, but justices refused to hear the case.