Judge gives rogue juror six months prison but suspends sentence

A juror who caused a mistrial in the highly publicized june murder trial of bagel baker Kelly Hunnewell on Monday admitted wrongdoing before Circuit Judge Robert Hood.

Hood gave the ex-juror, Lisa McLean, 52, of Columbia, a stern scolding and six months in prison but suspended the sentence if McLean completes 300 hours of community service and pays the government back the $900 it spent on jurors during the Hunnewell trial.

Although McLean has one year to do the community service and pay off the $900, Hood’s no-nonsense tone in sentencing McLean left little doubt he was tempted to give her hard time.

But McLean recited a litany of medical woes that left onlookers thinking she might get severely ill or even die if she had to undergo prison.

Not only does she have six screws and a rod in her back, she has had a heart attack, has Type 1 diabetes, suffers anxiety attacks and must take numerous pills, McLean said, pointing to a bag of medicine on a table.

“For the record, she has a gallon-sized Zip-loc bag full of medicine,” Judge Hood said.

McLean said, “I told everyone every day I did not want to do jury duty ... it’s hard to focus with the medications that I’m on.”

And, she told the judge, surveillance videos of Hunnewell being gunned down in the bagel bakery upset her when they were repeatedly played to the jury. “Every day I had to live with this women being killed ... I still relive it, in the awfullest way.”

McLean added, “I truly apologize.”

Answering questions from Hood, McLean told him she is unemployed, lives on a modest Social Security income and gets $46 a month in food stamps. “Some days I eat, some days I don’t,” she said.

Hood was moved, but only to the extent that he made it clear that probation was the only break he would give her.

“If you mess up this court order, I am going to lock you up,” Hood told her as Assistant Public Defender Constantine Pournaras stood by her.

“Six months does not mean the county jail – it means the women’s prison in the Department of Corrections, do you understand me?” Hood told her.

McLean pleaded guilty to contempt of court, a common law criminal sanction judges can employ to punish people who flout court rules.

In her case, Hood said she had “willfully” defied his instructions not to discuss the case with other jurors during the Hunnewell trial. During that trial, Hood repeatedly instructed jurors not to discuss the case among themselves before jury deliberations began.

McLean was an alternate juror in the June murder trial of Troy Stevenson, charged in the shooting death of 33-year-old Hunnewell, a mother of four, during an attempted robbery at a Columbia bakery.

Trial prosecutors requested a mistrial on grounds of jury misconduct. They said one of their investigators saw McLean hugging Stevenson’s family members outside of the courtroom.

McLean also was trying to persuade fellow African-American jurors not to convict Stevenson on all charges, prosecutors said.

Hood said, “You had 14 other members of the community who gave up six days of their life to come in here and make a decision on the case – they all left with a feeling of nothing being accomplished,” Hood said. “You had two families, the Hunnewell family and the Mr. Stevenson’s family, having yet another delay in the trial because your conduct and your behavior were inappropriate.”

Hunnewell case prosecutors Luck Campbell, Dolly Garfield and Meghan Walker, as well as several Columbia Police Department investigators were in the courtroom.

A new trial in the case has been set for Oct. 19.

This story was originally published August 24, 2015 at 12:59 PM with the headline "Judge gives rogue juror six months prison but suspends sentence."