Juror’s research leads to mistrial

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

A juror's use of a coconut to try to test the prosecution's theory that a rock was used as a murder weapon caused a mistrial Thursday, infuriating the assistant district attorney who had handled the case.

After days of testimony and arguments, the jury had been deliberating a verdict in the case against Shod Walker since Wednesday morning. But District Judge John McGroarty said he was forced to grant a mistrial because the jury foreman gave him a note indicating one of the 12 jurors had performed outside research relevant to the case.

The judge told the jury that "the genius of our jury system is you make decisions on what you see and hear in the court. In good faith sometimes jurors try to take matters into their own hands and you cannot do that."

McGroarty on Monday is to schedule a new trial date for the 25-year-old Walker. Prosecutors and police allege Walker used a 44-pound rock on the skull of 39-year-old Simone Hirst, a Utah resident who was celebrating her birthday in Las Vegas.

Walker admits he was with Hirst on the morning of her death, but said the last time he saw her she had fallen out of a window three feet off the ground at the laundry room of an apartment complex at 11th Street and Stewart Avenue. He said he looked at her motionless body and went home.

Police found Hirst lying face down outside the laundry room during the early morning hours of April 28. They also said that after Walker left her there, he changed clothes and checked into a motel for seven days to avoid police.

The juror who caused the mistrial, Randal Davis, said questions he had about the coroner's testimony and the prosecution's theory compelled him to conduct an experiment and to share the results with his fellow jurors.

Davis, a retired construction worker, said he purchased a coconut and then found a large rock near his desert home in Laughlin. He then took the rock to his butcher to have it weighed.

Davis said that since his rock weighed 42 pounds, he figured it was comparable to the rock prosecutors allege Walker used to bludgeon. Davis said he lifted the rock up to his head and dropped it onto the coconut, which was completely smashed by the impact.

Davis figured that the crushed coconut demonstrated that if Walker had dropped the rock on Hirst's head she would have suffered "terrible deformation" to the exterior of her head instead of the small gash she suffered.

"I did this to see if the coroner's testimony as per it happening was correct," Davis said. "I did not want to put a man in prison for the rest of his life without knowing for certain if she (Hirst) could have been murdered in such a way."

The coroner said Hirst's autopsy revealed she suffered a depressed skull fracture and a more serious hinge fracture. It's the type of is normally seen in in injuries high-speed motorcycle crashes when a motorcyclist isn't wearing a helmet and in car accidents when the vehicle rolls over and the passenger is ejected.

Davis said the coroner's theory was flawed, first of all, because the fall would have been closer to nine feet as he reasoned Hirst would have been standing prior to going through the window. Davis said "it was a definite" that a nine-foot fall onto a 44-pound rock could have caused Hirst's skull fractures.

Judges routinely instruct jurors that they have to base their deliberations on only the evidence presented in court.

Davis said he didn't realize that he shouldn't have conducted the home experiment and he wouldn't apologize for his actions, only "for what people think of me."

Both prosecutors and Walker's attorneys said the jury was 9 to 3 in favor of a guilty verdict at the time the mistrial was granted.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas called Davis' actions "unbelievable and unforgivable."

"I'm disgusted," Daskas said. "This juror, if he had any idea of the amount of time, energy and resources we put into preparing for a trial like this I hope he would have thought twice about doing what he did. Now her (Hirst's) family will have to relive this nightmare all over again."

Although there is no recourse to be taken against Davis for causing the mistrial Daskas suggested he be forced to repay the "tens of thousands of dollars" it cost to conduct the investigation and prosecute the case.

"We try to do everything right," Daskas said. "We play by the rules, dot our i's and cross our t's and this juror threw it all away."

Walker's attorney, Greg Denue, shared Daskas' anger saying "obviously this guy (Davis) didn't listen to the judge, went out an did a test on his own and now we will never know if this jury would have found Shod (Walker) innocent."

After talking to the rest of the jury after the mistrial was granted Denue said he felt the jury had the potential to acquit Walker, or at the very least end up a hung jury after one female juror told him she wasn't going to change her mind that Walker was not guilty.

Daskas said the one thing that all the other 11 jurors agreed on was how they felt about Davis.

"They were all incredibly frustrated by him (Davis) and felt he didn't hear the same evidence as the rest of them did," Daskas said.

Equally frustrated were Denue and Daskas, who for a while traded barbs at each other as they continued to argue Walker's case in the hallway outside of McGroarty's courtroom. Both would later apologize with Denue even giving Daskas a hug in jest.

Denue would later joke that the stress of being a defense attorney was getting to him so he was going to take a job as a district attorney.