So:
! Both the prosecutor and the defense attorneys as well as the judge allowed an alternate juror though voir dire despite the fact that he couldn’t understand English. This is gross incompetence and malpractice by all of them.
! In a criminal case, the jury informs the judge that one of the deliberating jurors admitted that a) he had made up his mind before hearing the evidence and testimony (that he couldn’t understand) and b) didn’t have sufficient knowledge of the English language to follow the case, and the judge does nothing!
! Even after perceiving no action from the judge, the jury’s foreman goes ahead with deliberations and delivers a verdict, despite knowing—at least he should have known—that the defendant has not received a fair trial since only eleven of his jurors could comprehend the language used in the trial and the official language of the nation he lives in!
Incompetent and unethical lawyers, incompetent and unethical jury, incompetent and unethical judge! Morons! What possible faith can a citizen have in a legal system where something like this could happen even once? How can anyone trust such a system? Yes, I see this as signature significance. In a trustworthy legal system with competent participants, such a debacle shouldn’t happen even once. Thanks to our unforgivably lax immigration process, the question “Do you understand English?” should be a mandatory question for potential jurors, followed by “Prove it!”
What heads will roll? There had better be some heads rolling, and soon….especially the judge, who should be working at Wendy’s. From the Times:
The judge who presided over Mr. Heaps’s trial, Michael D. Carter, wrote in an unsworn declaration, which was quoted in the appeals court decision, that when the jury sent the “Note to Judge” he was conducting a “teen court” at a local high school. When he received an email about it, Judge Carter wrote, he told his judicial assistant to ask the jurors if they could continue to deliberate and, if not, to send them home for the day. The judicial assistant then spoke to the foreman who wrote the note and the juror who was the subject of the note. “All jurors indicated that they could continue to deliberate,” Judge Carter wrote. “The court did not notify the parties about the note nor did the court inquire with the jury.”
Oh, great. An incompetent judge teaches high school students how to run incompetent criminal trials. How could the jurors say that they could continue to deliberate when one of them couldn’t understand English and the other eleven had the burden of interpreting the evidence for him? So we can add a fourth incompetent to the metaphorical docket, the judicial assistant!
But never mind…have they found Savannah’s mom yet?
Ethics Alarms 
Sounds like an out take from “My Cousin Vinnie.”
What should the jury had done when they presumably did what they thought they should do? They told the judge. What is the next step here?
I recently watched the movie “Runaway Jury”. I am not saying that this is an excellent or even ethical movie, however I came away with the impression that attorneys for both sides in any trial are trying to rig the jury selection process in their party’s favor. So I am not sold on the idea that this outcome of the case proves that the defense attorney was derelict in his duties, as he may have perceived that having this guy on the jury would at least not hurt his clients prospects. The overturning of the verdict proved him right. Now the the ultimate outcome may be attributed to moral luck, however any player in any game knows that luck does not occur by happenstance, but that the conditions in which luck may transpire may have to be created in the first place. So allowing for this wildcard to be added to a jury in a case in which he client was almost guaranteed to loose was a good play. Because in a criminal trial all it takes is one juror to avoid a guilty verdict.
About the prosecutor and the judge to allow this wildcard on the jury, that is indeed incompetent.