Page 1 of 3IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXASDALLAS DIVISIONUNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DONALD W. HILL (01)

a/k/a “Don Hill”

D’ANGELO LEE (02)

No. 3:07-CR-289-MSHEILA D. FARRINGTON (03)

a/k/a “Sheila Farrington Hill”

DARREN L. REAGAN (07)

a/k/a “Dr. Darren L. Reagan”

RICKEY E. ROBERTSON (10)

a/k/a “Rick Robertson”

ORDER ON MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL

Before the Court is the Motion for New Trial of Defendant Sheila Hill (“Hill”), in whichshe alternatively seeks an evidentiary hearing [Docket Entry #1044]. This Motion is based onthree issues. The Court denies the Motion on two bases and defers its ruling on the third.

Newspaper in Jury Room

. Defendant Hill notes that on one occasion, a copy of a

Dallas Morning News

newspaper (dated Friday, August 21, 2009) was found in the jury room while itwas being cleaned after the trial day. The Court had repeatedly instructed the jurors that theywere not to read, listen to or view any news reports about the case. The Motion asserts that thepresence of the paper in the jury room warrants additional investigation. On the morning of August 24, 2009, the Court was informed by its Court Security Officer that he had been told thata juror had brought the newspaper to the jury room to read only those portions of the newspaperthat the jurors were permitted to read, and that no juror had read the other parts of the paper, andthe Court communicated to counsel what it had been told. The August 21, 2009, edition of thenewspaper contained a single article about this case that the Court showed to counsel for all

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Page 2 of 3parties during the Court’s consideration of the issue. That article factually reported events thathad occurred during the trial, and did not report matters that were excluded from the jury.Consequently, there was no evidence of prejudice, even if the jurors had read the article.Defense counsel, on behalf of their clients, expressly stated that the Court should not conduct afurther inquiry, although the Court offered to do so, and requested merely that the Court give anadditional admonition to the jurors that they not access news about the case, which the Court did.The parties thus waived any objection based on the presence of the newspaper in the jury room.Based on all of these facts, the Court

DENIES

Defendant’s Motion for New Trial on this basis.

Lee Declaration

. A second issue raised in Defendant’s Motion for New Trial relies upona Declaration of Defendant D’Angelo Lee. Lee states that an acquaintance of his informed himthat while the trial was ongoing, a juror talked to him, and gave opinions, about this case. TheDeclaration of Mr. Lee is ambiguous and nonspecific, and reports rank hearsay from anunidentified person, about unidentified events and subjects allegedly discussed at an unidentifiedtime and place. That is a wholly insufficient basis for the Court to conduct a further inquiry, letalone to grant a new trial. The Motion for New Trial is

DENIED

on this basis.

Dallas Observer Article

. The Motion for New Trial argues a third issue—that the same juror referenced in Mr. Lee’s Declaration gave an interview to Mr. Sam Merten, of the

DallasObserver

(“

Observer

”), which was reported in the

Observer

on October 19, 2009. No affidavitor other admissible evidence on this issue was submitted to the Court. Assuming that the articleaccurately reports what the juror said,

Hill argues that the conduct described constitutes jurymisconduct. Unlike reported cases of alleged jury misconduct, the Court and the parties’

On November 2, 2009, the Court requested the

Observer

to furnish any copy of the tape recording of the interviewwith the juror, so that the Court could verify what the juror said. Citing to some vague constitutional protectionunknown to this Court, the

Observer

declined to produce the tape to the Court. Because of the

Observer’s

refusal toproduce the tape, the Court cannot assess the accuracy of the story.

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