USA - U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions orders new trial in Donald Fell's case

U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions orders new trial in Donald Fell's case. "The court finds that Fell has shown juror misconduct and that this misconduct violated his constitutional right to an impartial jury, Fell is therefore entitled to a new trial." Fell, 34, White, has been on death row at a federal penitentiary in Indiana since 2005 (see July 14, 2005) after a federal jury in Vermont found him guilty of kidnapping Terri King as she was arriving at a supermarket on Nov. 27, 2000 and then beating her to death in New York. Sessions based the decision to order a new trial on evidence unearthed by Fell's lawyers regarding the behavior of a single juror, identified as Juror 143 in court papers, during the trial and later, when questioned about his conduct. According to court documents filed by Fell's lawyers over the last two years, Juror 143 secretly traveled to Rutland during the trial to look at the crime scenes, told a 3rd party about what he saw and shared his observations with the jury panel. He also failed to tell the court about what he had done. "Juror 143's brazen disobedience, dishonesty, and unwillingness to decide the case based upon the evidence presented at trial demonstrate a partiality that would have resulted in his eviction from the panel during trial, and now invalidates Fell's conviction," Sessions wrote.