Lane Co. judge denies new trial for death row inmate David Ray Taylor, finds no jury tampering
By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard
A Lane County judge has rejected death row inmate David Ray Taylor’s request for a new trial and announced that he’s found no evidence to support an allegation that an alternate juror’s questionable behavior improperly influenced deliberations in the high-profile murder case.
Judge Charles Zennaché issued a written ruling last week saying that he has no authority to nullify Taylor’s conviction and death sentence because attorneys for the two-time convicted killer from Eugene took too long to ask for another trial. Requests such as the one made by Taylor’s lawyers must typically be made within 55 days of the entry of judgment in a case.
A jury in May 2014 found Taylor guilty of aggravated murder and ordered him sentenced to death in the killing of 22-year-old Eugene resident Celestino Gutierrez Jr.
Taylor’s lawyers didn’t formally request a new trial for their client until April. This was after Zennaché had conducted an unusual investigation — at the direction of the Oregon Supreme Court — into whether an alternate juror, who apparently knew about the murder case but claimed ignorance during jury selection, had shared information with others on the panel that could have influenced the trial’s outcome.
Zennaché concluded that the alternate, Holly Moser, had not disclosed her knowledge or opinions on the case to any of the jurors who participated in the deliberations.
He also wrote in denying the request for a new trial that although Taylor’s attorneys didn’t know about the juror misconduct issue until well after the 55-day period had elapsed, he still “does not have discretion to allow a late filing in this case.”
Taylor’s lawyers asserted in court documents that Moser’s behavior had deprived their client of a fair trial.
As an alternate, Moser didn’t participate in deliberations that produced the unanimous verdicts. But she did spend about four weeks with the rest of the jury during the trial, which — as parties to the case later learned — began two months after Moser had sent her husband an email that suggested she felt Taylor “needs to die” as punishment for Gutierrez’s murder.
Moser, who at the time worked as a Lane County Circuit Court clerk, wrote in the Feb. 14, 2014, email that she had read search warrants filed in the case. But she said in court during jury selection that she knew “really nothing” about the allegations and hadn’t formed any opinions about them.
Moser resigned from her job at the courthouse in September, around the same time that Zennaché learned of the email’s existence.
Based on the email’s discovery, the Oregon Supreme Court in January ordered Zennaché to lead a probe into potential juror misconduct involving Moser.
Taylor, now 59, became the 35th member of Oregon’s death row after the seven-woman, five-man jury ordered him to be executed for masterminding a plot to rob and kill Gutierrez in August 2012.
According to trial testimony, Taylor enlisted two much younger acquaintances to lure Gutierrez to Taylor’s home, where the victim was slain. The three suspects then used Gutierrez’s car as a getaway vehicle in a bank robbery in Mapleton. Gutierrez’s dismembered remains later were found buried in a forested area southwest of Eugene.
One of Taylor’s accomplices, Mercedes Crabtree, is serving a lifetime prison sentence for the murder. A trial for the third suspect, A.J. Nelson, is scheduled for February.
Taylor previously served 27 years in prison for the slaying of a Eugene gas station attendant in 1977. He was granted parole in 2004 and released from post-prison supervision three years later.
http://registerguard.com/rg/news/loc...-tampering.csp
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