The trial of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was a mess from the outset, but aside from rampant prosecutorial misconduct issues, who would have thunk that his right to a trial by jury would have a horse racing story attached? 

As the Anchorage Daily News explains,

Juror No. 4 in Sen. Ted Stevens’ federal corruption trial, otherwise known as Marian Hinnant, didn’t leave to attend her father’s funeral in California, as she told the judge at the time.

Instead, Hinnant had a plane ticket to see the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park outside Los Angeles and didn’t want to miss it, she told the judge today when he ordered her to court to find out why she’d left town and lost contact with him, forcing him to replace her just hours before the jury found Stevens guilty last week.

“I just wanted to go to the Breeders’ Cup,” she told reporters outside the courthouse in a rambling and incoherent interview.

Why should we assume, just because us lawyers are all fascinated by our own doings, and court stuff, and politics, and criminal law issues, that jurors care too?  Sometimes, the only thing going their minds is, “how do I get out of here and down to Santa Anita?”

Had there been 11 votes to convicted on day 1, my bet is that Hinnant would have made the 12th vote.  Convict?  Same deal.  Not that she didn’t care at all about her responsibility as a juror, but that Santa Anita was calling and, well, she cared more about the ponies.  Hey, jurors have real lives too, ya know.

While Hinnant’s secret concern for horse racing might be disturbing enough, and her premature announcement of her father’s death might be disconcerting, her explanation to the court takes the joke to a new, far deeper, level.

“She apologizes to the court. In fact, her father did not die,” Kramer said. “The story about her father was just one that popped into her head.”

Hinnant cut in, however, and in a thick drawl gave a rambling, incoherent and completely baffling monologue about her former employers in the horse-racing industry in Kentucky. She mentioned drugs, wiretaps and horse racing but made little sense.

“I’m not the one who was selling the drugs; I’m not the one who was doing the drugs,” she said, a comment that baffled nearly everyone in the courtroom.

She said she felt a bit guilty about leaving behind her responsibilities but that she really wanted to attend the Breeders’ Cup.

For those of us who profess to believe in the merit of voir dire, note that she made it through the “penetrating” selection process of federal court, past two groups of lawyers, and onto the jury.  Nobody noticed that she was, oh, slightly off-kilter. 

Yes, this is a funny story about a nutty person.  But it’s an apocryphal story about the value of jury selection.  No matter how hard we try to vet the jury for the prejudiced and the crazy, it remains a crap shoot.  Anybody want to argue again about whether this is all voodoo?