A young female juror near Detroit will face a contempt of court hearing this coming Thursday. Her crime? She defied a judge’s Order that she not discuss the case on which she was sitting – a criminal trial against a 40-year-old Clinton Township resident charged with a misdemeanor and a felony for resisting arrest. Hadley Jons, 20 of Macomb County, Michigan, received the same warning as all of the other jurors chosen to hear the criminal trial. But, apparently, she was the only juror to post her thoughts about which way she would vote on Facebook.
On Facebook, Jons wrote that she was “actually excited for jury duty tomorrow. It’s gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY. :P.”
The defense lawyer’s son, Jaxon Goodman, found the post on-line on August 11th. The defendant’s lawyer, Saleema Sheikh, informed the judge before court the next morning. The judge then questioned Jon’s if she had posted anything about the case on Facebook. She originally denied it, but then she reportedly put her face down and failed to answer when the judge read the post out-loud in open court.
The defendant’s lawyer said, “I would like to see her get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight. This is the jury system. People need to know how important it is.” The judge was apparently quite upset with the young woman.
Judge Diane Druzinski removed Jons from the jury and replaced her with an alternate juror. The jury later deliberated and convicted the defendant of felony resisting arrest.
This author tends to agree with the defense lawyer, a little quite time in the county lock-up might do this airhead some good. If we could check her cell phone records, we’d probably find her texting about the whole experience while driving to the mall. 😉