Jury notes continue in Dixon trial 

Posted: 11:55 am Fri, November 20, 2009
By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

A note from the jury foreperson in the theft case against Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon indicates that the first day of deliberations was marked by some tension.

The note, marked at 4:10 p.m. on Thursday, asks if the panel could break for the day because “things are getting a little out of order among us.”

It was one of several notes received in the hours after deliberations started at around 12:30, and visiting Judge Dennis M. Sweeney, hearing the case in Baltimore City Circuit Court, sent the jurors home after receiving it. On Friday morning, jurors resumed deliberations and Sweeney dealt with other notes he’d received, copies of which were supplied to the media this morning.

One of Thursday’s notes had asked, “Does ‘intent to deprive or misappropriation’ involve immediacy or a time period?” On Friday, Sweeney asked the juror to clarify the question.

As revised, the question seemed to center on the Holly Trolley cards supplied by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, which were found in the mayor’s home in June 2008. The juror asked whether to consider intent at the time the defendant took and carried away the property, ‘or can intent be determined by the acts of the defendant at a later date or time?’

Dale P. Kelberman, one of the mayor’s lawyers, thought the relevant instructions were those on theft, on page 20, but the prosecutor objected. The state wanted Sweeney to direct jurors to page 17 of the instructions, which deal with intent.

In the end, Sweeney referenced both, telling the jury to “apply the [theft] instruction on page 20 as it is written. As to intent, you should rely on page 17.”

“This is part of the problem with these inconsistent theories,” Sweeney told the attorneys.  As defense lawyer Arnold M. Weiner pointed out in his closing argument Thursday, the state has argued both that Dixon obtained the cards unlawfully and that she obtained them lawfully, but later misappropriated them.

Another note asked if a juror could get a legal dictionary.

“No, you cannot,” Sweeney replied. You have to rely on the instructions that have been given to you and be guided by the instructions at this juncture.

Deliberations are continuing.