State v. Jackson
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The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the court of appeals remanding this case to the district court to have two jurors who testified in private during a post-trial Schwartz hearing questioned again in a public hearing, holding that the court of appeals properly concluded that the district court erred when it closed the first part of the Schwartz hearing to the public.
After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder. Thereafter, one of the jurors suggested that she might have introduced extraneous information during deliberations. The district court held a Schwartz hearing to determine the effect of this information on the verdict but divided the hearing into two parts because of jurors' scheduling conflicts. The court of appeals ruled that the district court erred when it closed the first part of the Schwarz hearing to the public. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a post-trial Schwartz hearing is more analogous to a pretrial suppression hearing; and (2) the appropriate remedy was to remand to conduct a public Schwartz hearing.
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