Michelle Young

Jury misconduct allegations in Jason Young retrial deemed false

A State Bureau of Investigation probe found no jury misconduct in the second murder trial of Jason Young, a Raleigh man who was convicted in March of killing his pregnant wife, Michelle Young.

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Jason Young
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Facebook post that led to a state investigation into possible juror misconduct in the high-profile murder trial of Jason Young was false and posted to create "confusion, controversy and chaos," according to a judge's memo filed Wednesday in Wake County Superior Court.

Young, 37, was found guilty March 5 of first-degree murder in the Nov. 3, 2006, beating death of his pregnant wife, Michelle Young, inside their Raleigh home.

During jury deliberations, someone posted on Facebook that a juror was communicating with someone outside the case about the jury's progress.

"My hairdresser is friends with a jury member on the JY trial. They are now deadlocked at 9 Guilty 3 Not Guilty. It was 7 Not Guilty 5 Guilty!" according to one message.

In another post, the same Facebook user wrote: "My hairdresser is friends with a woman on the jury. She was supposedly texting her telling her how the vote was going."

The messages prompted Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens to ask the State Bureau of Investigation to look into the claims.

In his May 16 memo to attorneys in the case, Stephens said the posting from a "Jennifer Russell" was posted by a male blogger in High Point who had been following the case and believed Young was innocent and had been "railroaded."

"This male blogger did not personally know anyone named Jennifer Russell and did not know a hairdresser with a friend on the jury," Stephens wrote. "He just 'wanted people to open their minds up and see that Jason Young did not do it.' He acknowledged that what he had done was wrong."

Stephens said that the State Bureau of Investigation probe also investigated similar messages from an unemployed man in Darlington, Texas, who acknowledged that he posted comments on another website as a joke. A third posting, however, reporting a conversation between a juror and a woman at a restaurant was valid but involved an alternate juror who was not involved in deliberations.

"Unfortunately, it appears that this conduct does not constitute a crime," Stephens wrote of the posts. "The integrity of the jury verdict as rendered in open court is confirmed."

Jason Young was arrested in December 2009 and originally went to trial last summer, but a jury deadlocked on a verdict, forcing Stephens to declare a mistrial.

The jury in the second trial found Jason Young guilty after nearly 10 hours of deliberation. He is serving a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.

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