The trial of Bruce Lehrmann, accused of raping former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins, has been aborted after a juror was found in possession of material that had not been presented as evidence, against the judge’s specific directions.
This was not the first drama in the jury’s deliberations. On Tuesday, after more than four days of deliberating, the 12 jurors passed a note to ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum saying they could not agree on a unanimous verdict. The judge called the jurors back into the courtroom and encouraged them to keep working on a decision.
Today, however, she announced she had no choice but to discharge the jury due to a juror’s “misconduct”, which was apparently discovered when a member of the court staff noticed an academic research paper in one of the juror’s document holders that had been knocked to the floor.
