Jury duty ruling may affect several Mo. court cases

TROY, Mo. -- A now-rejected policy of allowing people to buy their way out of jury duty already has affected one case in east-central Missouri and might affect 10 more.

Last month an appeals court overturned a man's drug conviction because his jury may have been tainted by a now-discontinued court policy in Lincoln County. The policy, which was in place from March 2006 to December 2008, allowed potential jurors to avoid the courtroom by paying $50 and performing six hours of community service.

The Hannibal Courier-Post reported that a child molestation case is among those that could be affected.

"Even one is too many," Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney G. John Richards said Friday.

The unusual policy, which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported on earlier this month, was developed by a judge to help potential jurors whose service would have caused a significant inconvenience. It was halted after a public defender brought up the issue during jury selection in the murder trial of a man later convicted of killing Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt in 2001. That jury was picked in Lincoln County because of pretrial publicity in Columbia.

But it was the case of Donald W. Preston, 44, of Elsberry, that is putting other verdicts at risk.

Preston was sentenced to 15 years in prison in August 2007 after a jury found him guilty of running a methamphetamine lab out of a vehicle.

The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District affirmed the verdict, but Preston filed a challenge to Lincoln County's jury selection process in February 2009.

According to testimony, seven of the 419 eligible jurors in his case took the opt-out, paying $50 and performing community service instead of serving.

In ordering a new trial for Preston, Presiding Judge Kurt Odenwald wrote that the opt-out policy is a problem because qualified jurors have an obligation to serve unless excused, and that is a matter of judicial discretion.

Preston will be returned from a Department of Corrections facility to Lincoln County for the new trial, which hasn't been scheduled.

Richards also said he hoped that a plea bargain could be discussed.