A wrist slap. That’s all former Rogers County prosecutor Isaac Shields is likely to get after spying on jury deliberations in a first-degree murder trial.
Shields was a supervising attorney in the Rogers, Craig and Mayes County district attorney’s office who prosecuted major cases. Last year, he was prosecuting Robert Kraft, who was charged with stabbing Justin Johnson to death on June 29, 2018. Kraft was arrested June 30, 2018, and held on a murder charge with bail set at $1 million.
The case went to trial in late June 2022. About 3 p.m. on July 1, 2022, Judge Stephen Pazzo sent the jurors to deliberate in an adjacent courtroom. They returned the guilty verdict about five hours later. Kraft was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Six days later, Pazzo called a meeting. A sheriffs deputy had alerted another Rogers County judge, Lara Russell, that Shields and another prosecutor, George Gibbs, spent hours watching the jury’s deliberations via the courtroom’s security cameras.
That’s against the law, which says, “If any person … observes, or attempts to listen to or observe, the proceedings of any grand or petit jury of which he is not a member in any court of the State of Oklahoma while such jury is deliberating or voting shall be guilty of a felony and shall be fined not more than One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) or imprisoned not more than two (2) years, or both.”
District Attorney Matt Ballard sent Shields packing, but gave him the option to resign, which Shields exercised. Professional grievances were filed. Surprising no one in the western hemisphere, Kraft moved for a mistrial.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court, which deals with attorney misconduct, convened a Professional Review Tribunal. The tribunal considered Shield’s previously stellar reputation, his military service and his volunteerism. The tribunal also awarded Brownie points because Shields self-reported his behavior about a week after it came to the judges’ attention, and his cooperative attitude with investigators.
The tribunal also considered his defense, which was the he didn’t know it was wrong to watch jury deliberations.
First Assistant District Attorney Joy Thorp testified that “everyone knows that jury deliberations are sacrosanct. Every attorney, whether first year or ten year attorney, should know that jury deliberations are sacrosanct,” the tribunal reported.
The tribunal also found there were “strong inferences that Respondent may have been dishonest or made misrepresentations in one or more interviews,”but concluded the evidence of dishonesty and deceit did not rise to the level of clear and convincing.
Summary: A prosecutor spied on the jury for three hours while they deliberated, something even a first-year lawyer knows you can’t do. A week after someone turned him in, he decided to turn himself in. He lied. And his defense was, “I didn’t know it was illegal.”
In a 36-page recommendation to the court, the tribunal concluded that the appropriate discipline was public censure.
If “I didn’t know that was against the rules” worked that well in sports, hockey wouldn’t need a penalty box.
The court is not obligated to follow the tribunal’s recommendation