Shortly after the forewoman sent U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer a note that the jury had reached a verdict in the trial of former Gov. George Ryan, Pallmeyer summoned the woman to her office.
Forewoman Sonja Chambers quickly learned that Pallmeyer did not want to discuss the verdict, which remained sealed.
Instead, the judge was investigating 11th-hour allegations that during jury selection Chambers had not revealed that she had been through contentious divorce proceedings.
For nearly an hour, as a packed courtroom anxiously awaited the verdict, Pallmeyer grilled the jury forewoman in chambers, according to recently unsealed transcripts of the proceeding.
Days after the verdict, the transcripts unsealed by Pallmeyer reveal the behind-the-scenes machinations of the last, dramatic day of Ryan’s six-month trial.
They show that by the count of Ryan’s lawyers, Chambers proceeded to give three varying explanations for why she did not tell the court about her divorce proceedings. Still, Pallmeyer shot down the defense request to toss Chambers from the jury, saying she didn’t believe the juror intentionally concealed information.
Two minutes later, in Pallmeyer’s austere courtroom, Chambers handed the jury’s verdict to a court security officer, who delivered it to the judge. Guilty on all counts, Pallmeyer announced as to Ryan and co-defendant Lawrence Warner.
Controversial figure
Chambers, an African-American professional woman who garnered praise from other jurors for her work as forewoman, became a lightning rod of controversy for the defense in the final days of deliberations.
Twice, lawyers for Ryan and Warner tried to bounce her from the jury. Twice, they failed.
Dan Webb, Ryan’s lead lawyer, didn’t return a call for comment Friday, but following Monday’s guilty verdicts, he made it clear that Chambers’ omission on a juror questionnaire and other juror issues during deliberations would form a key part of the appeal of the former governor’s conviction. Edward Genson, Warner’s lead lawyer, declined comment.
U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald has defended the fairness of the trial and the jury.
For Chambers, an acknowledged fan of Court TV, the end of the six-month trial and its controversial deliberations have produced a roller coaster of emotions, said her attorney, Keith Spence.
As the spotlight centered on Chambers’ conduct in the days after the verdict, Spence said, “She was kind of taken aback, a little disappointed.”
“As the week went on, she got a little angry,” Spence said. Then she was able to let off steam by expressing her feelings in a TV interview, he said. “She would be extremely disappointed if this thing got thrown out [on appeal],” he said.
The questions arose about Chambers in the days after a caller to a radio talk show, identifying himself only as “Dennis” and the owner of a small business, claimed March 28 that a female juror in the Ryan trial had discussed the case with him.
According to the transcripts, the broadcast was overheard by an employee of Winston & Strawn, the law firm representing Ryan. By March 31, the defense had raised the issue in a sealed court submission.
Lawyers for Warner, a close Ryan friend and a lobbyist, subpoenaed telephone records from the radio station, WLS-AM, in a bid to learn the caller’s identity.
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In the meantime, on April 6, Pallmeyer agreed to interview the jury’s six female members individually about whether they had discussed the case with a Dennis. Each in turn denied the allegation.
By April 10, the defense revealed it had identified the caller as Dennis McLaughlin, who in fact operated a gourmet coffee kiosk in the Metra commuter train station in Lisle.
With Pallmeyer’s approval, McLaughlin was interviewed and admitted being the caller.
The next day, as he was questioned in Pallmeyer’s chambers, McLaughlin labeled his call to WLS as “one of the worst decisions I ever made.”
He identified Chambers as the juror from a photo, described her as a semiregular customer and stuck by his allegation that she had discussed the case with him. However, he said she hadn’t talked about the deliberations in any substance.
“I would not ask her any questions that would put her in jeopardy,” he said.
Later the same day, the judge questioned Chambers in three successive sit-downs in her chambers with the lawyers.
She insisted she didn’t know McLaughlin well but occasionally bought coffee from his stand. The morning of the alleged conversation with McLaughlin, Chambers said, she had breakfast with a couple of other jurors downtown so she didn’t even buy coffee at the Lisle station.
“I mean, I don’t know him that well to talk to him about anything at all, except for, `Can I have hazelnut in my coffee?’ That’s it,” Chambers said.
Pallmeyer found Chambers more credible. “I think I would need a solid sense that she is lying to me in order to conclude that I ought to remove her at this point,” she said. “I don’t get the sense that she is lying to me.”
The controversy over Chambers was far from over, however.
Confusion over questionnaire
Just two days later, on April 13, Genson disclosed that his staff had discovered Chambers was involved in a divorce, and he immediately raised concern about her answer to Question 84 on the questionnaire filled out by jurors as part of jury selection.
Chambers answered “No” to: “Have you ever had to appear in court or been involved in any lawsuit or court proceeding as a plaintiff, defendant, victim or witness for any reason …?”
Pallmeyer proposed putting off any hearing until after a verdict.
By last Monday, when the judge received word of a verdict at about 10 a.m., she reached the lawyers by telephone, announced the arrival of a decision and asked one lawyer from each side to come to her chambers to decide the forewoman’s fate. At about 11:30 a.m., Pallmeyer called Chambers into her office and questioned her at length about her answer on the questionnaire.
At first, Chambers said she hadn’t revealed the divorce proceedings in answer to the question “because I was still married…. He was still living in the home.”
But then Chambers recalled that her estranged husband had moved out of her home in 2004.
She then said she didn’t feel it necessary that she note the divorce in answer to the question because she had already mentioned she was separated on the questionnaire. She also said her last appearance in court on the divorce was apparently in September 2005, shortly before jury selection in the Ryan trial.
After the lawyers again consulted privately with Pallmeyer, Chambers was called back. She said she didn’t think her divorce case was significant enough to mention. “I was thinking of something really big and not divorce,” she said.
After Chambers left the office again, Webb said she had given three different explanations and had lied on the questionnaire. He argued he didn’t see any difference between her conduct and two other jurors–Robert Pavlick and Evelyn Ezell–who had earlier been dismissed during deliberations for concealing arrest records during jury selection.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Collins called comparisons to Ezell and Pavlick “apples and oranges” and defended Chambers’ answers as “the flip side of the same coin.”
Pallmeyer sided with Chambers again. “I think the juror could have answered these questions differently and arguably should have, but I don’t believe that she was intentionally concealing information from us,” the judge said.
Moments later, Pallmeyer stepped into the courtroom and read the guilty verdicts aloud.
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