United States v. Stella Maudine Nickell

This is an appeal from a conviction of tampering with a consumer product in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1365 (Supp. I 1983). The defendant was charged with, and convicted of, five counts of implanting potassium cyanide in packages of over-the-counter pain medications. This tampering resulted in the deaths of two victims, the defendant’s husband and another woman unknown to the defendant who purchased the product in a store. The conviction was entered after a jury verdict in a highly-publicized trial.

It is remarkable that in this ably-presented appeal none of the claimed points of error concern rulings of the district court during the course of the trial itself. The issues in this appeal relate solely to the conduct of jurors during voir dire and deliberations, and the conduct of the trial judge during jury deliberations. The most significant issue is whether the district court delivered more than one Allen-type charge to the jury in violation of the law of this circuit. We affirm.

Juror Holliday

A number of issues concern the conduct of one particular juror, Laurel Holliday. We must decide first whether the district court should have excused Holliday after she reported a contact…