FORT MYERS, Fla. -- One thing the judge will be addressing with the jury in the Mark Sievers trial on Friday is an issue with a juror who appeared to be falling asleep during testimonies.
Judge Bruce Kyle said when he looked over to the jury throughout the day, he noticed one of the men appeared to be struggling to stay awake several times. He said the bailiff also made him aware of this.
So Judge Kyle said they would be talking to him to see if he needs to be removed from the jury.
We asked our legal expert, Pam Seay, how big of a problem this is. “If he is that inattentive, if he does have some kind of issue that keeps him from staying awake during the trial, maybe he’ll be dismissed, which drops them down to one alternate left; because they will need the 12 jurors plus two alternates. If that person is dismissed, they are down one. We are only on the second day of testimony. This is what’s supposed to be another 4-5 weeks. What if we lose more jurors? Yeah, this is problematic this early.”
Another interesting note is that this is the same juror who had an issue with notes from the Jimmy Rodgers trial being found in his juror notebook.
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