U.S. COURT OVERTURNS JUROR'S CONTEMPT CONVICTION

DENVER - A Colorado appeals court Thursday overturned the
conviction of a juror who was held in contempt of court because she
did not reveal her opposition to narcotics laws when she was selected
to a jury in a drug case.

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Laura Kriho, 35, should
receive a new trial because the judge who found her in contempt in
1996 improperly considered testimony about what Kriho told fellow
panelists during jury deliberations.

The judge in the 1996 case concluded that Kriho had obstructed justice
And ordered her to pay a $1,200 fine for contempt. Kriho appealed,
contending that the jury system was threatened by the prosecution of a
juror.

Kriho served as a juror in a 1994 case in a rural mountain county west
of Denver where a 19-year-old woman was charged with possessing
methamphetamine. Kriho was the lone holdout in the trial, which ended
in a mistrial.

At her contempt trial, Kriho's fellow jurors testified that she argued
that drug cases should be handled by families and not by courts. She
also urged jurors not to convict the methamphetamine defendant because
of what Kriho considered the harshness of the potential penalty.

During jury selection, Kriho failed to disclose that 11 years earlier
she had pleaded guilty to possessing the hallucinogenic drug LSD and
is a member of a group that supports the legalization of marijuana.

The appeals court ruled 2-1 that Kriho's conviction must be overturned
because the judge in her contempt trial improperly invaded the
sanctity of the jury's right to secrecy by considering what Kriho said
during deliberations.

If Kriho is retried, evidence of her opposition to drug laws cannot be
considered because there is not sufficient evidence of it except for what
she said during the secret deliberations, the appeals court said in a
62-page decision. It also noted that contempt proceedings against jurors
"have been exceptionally rare" in the United States.