Sunday, May 20, 2012
Jurors: Widmer jury split was closer
Written by Janice Morse • jmorse@enquirer.com   
Saturday, 05 June 2010 13:23

A pair of jurors in the Ryan Widmer retrial say they want to set the record straight: Seven of 12 jurors were convinced of his guilt, while four would have voted to acquit and one remained undecided.

In interviews Saturday, two Warren County women spoke on condition of anonymity, saying other jurors were inaccurate when they estimated a 10-2 split in favor of conviction.

"I think they had the mistaken impression that the people that were undecided -- or kind of quieter -- were leaning toward guilty," said a legal assistant who lives in Hamilton Township.

That woman and four other jurors granted interviews to WKRC-TV Channel 12 as a group Friday evening, confirming that four of them favored acquittal and one was undecided. At least two jurors who were in favor of guilt have also spoken publicly.

"It scares me a lot about our justice system," she said. "If something happened to one of our kids or somebody in my house, I hate to think that the first thought of somebody is to think that I must have done something bad. Everybody's looking for a reason to blame someone else. Bad things happen. It doesn't always have to be somebody else's fault."

Story by Janice Morse of the Cincinnati Enquirer - read the entire story on Cincinnati.com [click here]