Michael Roseboro might have thought he caught a break a week after the verdict. A local newspaper broke a story that had the potential to turn things around for the embattled murderer. There was light, hope on Roseboro’s part for a second wind.
The Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era reported shortly after the verdict that two jurors, Nick Keene and Michael Hecker, did not necessarily enjoy the time they spent on the jury during Roseboro’s murder trial. They had often been vocal about it on Facebook.
Before, during, and after the trial, the newspaper uncovered, both jurors had “facebooked” friends regarding their feelings. They had complained to Facebook friends that they were, for one, picked for the jury; and two, the trial had dragged along.
Yea, it blows, nineteen-year-old Nick Keene wrote in one Facebook post that June, before jury selection concluded. Three [f-ing] weeks. If the trial went that long, Keene continued, he’d have all of two weeks until school starts.
Then on July 27, the start of what turned out to be the final week of the trial, Michael Hecker, somewhat older than Keene, wrote that he was hoping this will be the last week of court.
That comment, posted at 7:24 A.M., close to two hours before court started, wasn’t so bad. It was the answers the comment elicited that stunned many later, and perhaps raised some concern that Keene and Hecker had stepped over the line and failed to follow the judge’s order not to talk about the case.
Ha, one friend posted in reaction to Hecker’s line.
Fry him, another friend answered.
Why were you in court? asked another.
I’m a juror on a 1st degree murder trial, Hecker responded to his friends that night, well after court had ended for the day. He then explained how he had been on the jury for the last three weeks, saying how unfortunate it was and how he couldn’t wait till I can share my thoughts on it.
A friend encouraged Hecker to stop in at work sometime and share….
There was no indication if Hecker ever did.
On the day Stedman rested the state’s case, at 5:53 P.M., Hecker posted this gem: THANK GOD, before explaining how the case had been dragging on and on.
The ethical question about all this banter wasn’t if these jurors had done anything wrong. They did not discuss the content of the case, evidence, witnesses, or Michael Roseboro himself. Basically, they were venting, same as you might at the local diner or post office, about being a juror.
Still, did these jurors disregard the judge’s instructions? Did they maintain their integrity as jurists?
Allan Sodomsky didn’t think they had. In fact, he believed Michael Roseboro deserved a new trial based on this revelation.
On August 3, 2009, Judge James Cullen asked for a conference call with both attorneys to discuss what had been brought to light.
“In our opinion,” Craig Stedman told reporters, “there’s nothing there.” The DA explained that while the jurors in question talked about their feelings, they did not talk about facts. “A person on Facebook, that’s their way of coming home and blowing off steam,” he added. “Whereas, before you would do it at the dinner table and talking to people.”
After the conference call, Stedman was confident the issue had been resolved, saying, “The judge had the power to schedule a hearing if he felt he needed to, in this case. He didn’t do that. You can draw your own conclusion.”
It wouldn’t end there, however.
But first, regardless of what was going on with the Facebook allegations, the judge needed to impose a sentence on Michael Roseboro.
The sentencing was a mere formality. On September 25, 2009, Roseboro received a mandatory life sentence without parole. He could appeal, of course, which Allan Sodomsky was actually working on already. But for now, Roseboro was slated to spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security facility upstate, far away from family and friends.
“What stands out to me is the selfishness and senselessness of this crime,” Craig Stedman told the court. “… This murder should not have happened. We should not be here…. Mr. Roseboro had opportunities most people do not have and can only dream of. But he wanted it all.”
Sodomsky asked the judge if Roseboro could be held at Lancaster County Prison for the next ten days so he could work with him on the appeal.
Judge James Cullen said he would allow it. Then he ordered Roseboro to pay $25,000 in restitution for what the judge called “necessary counseling for your children,” none of whom attended the sentencing.
In early October, after Allan Sodomsky had a chance to review all of the Facebook comments, he filed a motion in Lancaster County court claiming “juror misconduct.”
The judge ordered Craig Stedman’s office to respond.
“This motion is yet another attempt by this murderer,” Stedman said, lashing out at Roseboro, as he talked to the press, “to try and avoid responsibility for cowardly killing his wife.”
Sodomsky ignored the comments and decided to dig into the law. He demanded a hearing on the matter. He wanted to see both jurors brought into court and placed under oath, so they could answer questions about what Sodomsky referred to as “unauthorized communications.” The law, Sodomsky wrote, entitles Michael Roseboro to a hearing to determine whether there were communication’s between jurors and outsiders about the trial, and whether they prejudiced the verdict.
A fact-finding mission was all Sodomsky was after.
In that same motion, Sodomsky pointed out: The
juror, Hecker, who was clearly disgruntled, bored, and eager to see a speedy end to the trial and to jury deliberations, was advised by a “friend”—who had reason to know the details of the prosecution’s case due to media coverage of the trial—that Hecker “should just vote guilty and get it over with” and that he should “fry him.”
Perhaps the defense lawyer had a point?
This was a gray area, predominantly. Social networking was not something courts had had to deal with all that much in the past. Yet, the future was looking to be something different.
Sodomsky wrote in his motion that he wanted to examine cell phones, computers, hard drives, Facebook accounts, e-mail, and Internet accounts of the two jurors.
A clear invasion of privacy.
Stedman countered by saying that “nothing in the alleged Facebook communications,” from what he had read, “remotely approaches grounds for relief…. In the copies of the alleged communications we were provided with,” the DA continued, “no juror discusses the facts of the case.” To the contrary, one juror, Hecker, had even noted that he could not wait for the case to end so he could finally discuss it.
Obviously, the judge would have to take some time and decide if Michael Roseboro deserved a new trial or, at the least, a hearing.