Ross Brandon Sluss v. Commonwealth, 2011-SC-000318-MR, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Ky. 2012)
Opinion by Justice Noble. To be published. Jury issues and Facebook. Sluss was convicted of murder, first degree assault, DUI, and tampering with physical evidence. The case received much publicity in Martin County and was discussed often on Facebook and Topix. After trial, Sluss discovered two of the jurors may have been Facebook friends with the victim’s mother. “As a general rule, anything which is good cause for challenge for disqualification of a prosepective juror is deemed good cause for a new trial if not known or discoverable to the defendant or his counsel before the verdict and they were misled by a false answer on voir dire.” The Supreme Court remanded the case for the trial court to determine if the two jurors were facebook friends with the victim’s mother and the extent and nature of the jurors’ relationship with her if they were.Contributed by Brandon Jewell
