A judge has ruled there will be no new trial for a Florida polo mogul best known for adopting his adult girlfriend to evade losing his fortune in the outcome of his DUI manslaughter case,
The Palm Beach Post reports.
A six-page ruling from Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath said that a juror's claim that he felt pressured into convicting Texas millionaire John Goodman was not sufficient to order a new trial.
Goodman's defense team had asked for a new trial based on the juror's claims, but the judge the juror should have spoken up sooner.
"To allow such decision to be attacked months or even years after the close of a case simply because a juror experiences post-verdict regret would open our trial system to a virtual onslaught of attacks from dissatisfied parties and jurors," Colbath wrote.
Last week Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz tol
d Newsmax that more information was needed to determine how the juror was pressured, or felt pressured. Dershowitz said if the juror simply changed his mind after the case was over, the verdict should stand.
In an unrelated motion, another juror in the case has written a book where he details how he tried to drink the amount of alcohol Goodman had consumed the night of the accident that killed 23-year-old Scott Wilson. Goodman's defense attorney, Roy Black, has said that case is clear juror misconduct and again called for Colbath to throw out Goodman's conviction.
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