{"id":73039,"date":"2017-01-21T02:12:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T09:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jury-duty-cut-short-when-defendant-appears-missing\/"},"modified":"2017-01-21T09:12:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T09:12:17","slug":"jury-duty-cut-short-when-defendant-appears-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jury-duty-cut-short-when-defendant-appears-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury duty cut short when defendant appears missing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only problem: The defendant was there the whole time, sitting among the prospective jurors.<\/p>\n

As the courtroom emptied with the judge\u2019s thanks, Shilo Crowell, 32, of Arboles, made himself known to the court, according to those familiar with the scene.<\/p>\n

The exact details of the mixup were unknown Thursday. Most of those closest to the case couldn\u2019t be reached for comment or didn\u2019t return phone calls, including Crowell and public defense lawyer Paul Warren.<\/p>\n

Judge Martha Minot declined to comment, saying it is an ongoing case.<\/p>\n

But according to third-party accounts, including District Attorney Christian Champagne, who was briefed on the incident afterward, the defendant was unaware he was supposed to be on the other side of the bar to face trial.<\/p>\n

Warren, his public defense lawyer, apparently never met Crowell in person or didn\u2019t recognize him in the courtroom. He tried to call his client, but Crowell apparently had his cellphone turned off, per instructions issued to those in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

Minot dealt with the situation in closed chambers, presumably to avoid prejudicing the jury pool. She also never called the defendant\u2019s name, supposedly for the same reason.<\/p>\n

About 9 a.m., Minot dismissed the jury panel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs most of the people had left, the defendant was actually in the group of people that was in the jury panel,\u201d Champagne said. \u201cHe was sitting in the audience among all these people, and never came forward to announce himself as the defendant. He was apparently there the whole time, and the defense attorney didn\u2019t recognize him or didn\u2019t know him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defendants typically meet with their attorneys and have several court hearings before to going to trial, so it\u2019s a somewhat unusual situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a first; I have not seen that one before,\u201d Champagne said. \u201cThere have been hearings \u2013 this person, I\u2019m sure, has had several court dates prior to the trial, and again, it was just a very odd situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin Bogan, head of the Durango public defender\u2019s office, did not immediately return a phone call Thursday night seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Crowell\u2019s trial was rescheduled for 8 a.m. March 9.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story misspelled District Attorney Christian Champagne\u2019s first name.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

du1-i-syn The only problem: The defendant was there the whole time, sitting among the prospective jurors. As the courtroom emptied with the judge\u2019s thanks, Shilo Crowell, 32, of Arboles, made himself known to the court, according to those familiar with the scene. The exact details of the mixup were unknown Thursday. Most of those closest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[133,950,1515],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-courts","tag-durango","tag-judiciary-system-of-justice"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73039"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}