By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
(CNN) — The charges at a monthlong criminal trial in Washington’s federal court last month were fairly straightforward: That one man had allegedly held up seven 7-Elevens and a few other gas stations in spring 2023 and stolen cars.
But the trial of Shamell Naquan Joyner had a twist. While deliberating, jurors found a Chinese yuan in one sweatshirt that was in evidence. And inside a jacket that was also part of the case, they found suspicious white powder in a folded up piece of paper. The prosecutors and judge said it appeared to be drugs.
The DC US Attorney’s Office, law enforcement on the case and the defense team hadn’t known.
The events of the jury deliberation raised eyebrows across the federal court in recent days, as word spread of what happened.
During deliberations, jurors are allowed to review evidence that is presented during the trial. Had the suspected drugs and yuan been part of the prosecution’s case ahead of trial, it could have supported the case. But because it was a surprise, it could have been considered unfair to Joyner.
Several longtime lawyers in Washington told CNN last week they hadn’t heard of a situation as embarrassing as this one, though some former prosecutors in DC conceded that every few years, a jury might land upon a piece of evidence that wasn’t examined by law enforcement thoroughly enough.
Judge Rudolph Contreras, who presided over the trial, was flabbergasted.
“The Court shares Mr. Joyner’s amazement at law enforcement’s failure to uncover the Chinese Yuan, note, and powdery substance in the physical evidence,” the judge, who has a decade of experience on the bench, wrote in an opinion a few days later.
“Mr. Liolos, who I know is from New York, is probably astonished that any money got past the police department,” the judge also said on the bench, referring to John Liolos, one of Joyner’s lawyers.
The FBI declined to comment when asked how agents on the case weren’t aware of the drugs and money in the pockets.
When asked about how the evidence oversight happened, a spokesperson for the DC US Attorney’s Office didn’t answer directly.
The accusations
Prosecutors alleged Joyner had robbed 10 convenience stores and gas stations in central Washington, Maryland and northern Virginia in the spring of 2023. The robberies at first started a few days apart in April, then by May 2, Joyner was hitting several in the same day, they alleged. He also was accused of armed carjackings around two of the days that the armed robberies occurred.
The series of incidents resulted in a 28-count indictment against Joyner in 2023. He wasn’t charged with drug possession.
The case was big for the US Attorney’s Office. The trial lasted a full month, with the jury hearing witnesses testify over 10 trial days, then deliberations lasting another week. Joyner had as many as nine lawyers and three prosecutors at trial.
The discovery
As the jury was leaving on July 22, their second day of deliberations, a juror told courthouse staff they had found some items inside a jacket and a sweatshirt found in one of the carjacked cars that had been worn by the alleged robber.
“We were looking at (the jacket), and (one of the jurors) reached in the breast pocket and she pulled out — it looked like a receipt, but there was a white powder or white substance inside,” the jury foreperson told the court on July 23, the next morning, according to a trial transcript obtained by CNN.
“Some of it, kind of, spilled out a little bit, but (a juror) put it back in the pocket and we put it back in the bag,” the unnamed juror said.
There was a sweatshirt the jurors could examine too as evidence in the jury room. A juror had looked in the pocket there “and he pulled out — it was crumpled up — it was a bill … one of the Chinese Yuan bills,” the foreperson then said.
When the jurors found the suspected drugs and money in the pockets at the end of the second day of jury deliberations, the issue opened up major legal questions for Joyner.
Both items of clothing had been key evidence putting Joyner at the scene of two of the May 2 robberies, and were inside the Toyota he was accused of stealing when police captured it a few days later.
Would the jurors be prejudiced against Joyner now? Had the jury finding the suspected drugs corroborated witness testimony from the trial further than what Joyner’s defense lawyers anticipated?
The Justice Department argued that a witness testified about Joyner stealing money during the armed robbery of four different convenience stores. At one of the 7-Elevens, a witness said the robber took his wallet, and it had in it a Chinese Yuan from a college study abroad trip.
A cooperator who drove Joyner separately testified Joyner had paid him in drugs the night Joyner allegedly held up a gas station. The jacket with the apparent drugs in the pocket had been worn by the armed robber.
After the discovery in the pockets, Contreras brought each of the jurors into the courtroom one by one.
He told them the Chinese bill and the apparent drugs weren’t part of the evidence in the case. The jurors each told the court they could set aside those items in their consideration of the case against Joyner.
They went back to deliberating.
The verdict
The following Monday — the fifth day of deliberations — the jury had reached another predicament.
They said they realized they couldn’t agree on more than half of the charges — representing five of the alleged armed robberies and one carjacking — Joyner faced.
“The jury remains deadlocked on or unable to vote on the remaining 15 counts in this case,” they said in a note to the judge. “Our differences are in the areas of what constitutes a reasonable doubt and in how to determine identity beyond a reasonable doubt … In the absence of additional evidence or testimony, we cannot reach verdicts on the remaining 15 counts.”
So, Contreras ended deliberations, taking a partial verdict.
The diligence of the jury, unable to come to an agreement on several of the charges against Joyner, echoed an unusual challenge the US Attorney’s Office has faced in several other criminal trials this year.
Still, the jury found Joyner guilty of 13 criminal charges, representing an armed robbery in mid-April 2023 in downtown Washington, and four armed robberies and a carjacking on May 2, 2023, in Northwest Washington and Maryland.
“The jury’s verdict ensures the defendant will face a 31year mandatory minimum sentence, making the D.C. community safer with this serial robber off the streets,” a spokesperson from the US Attorney’s Office said about the case.
Joyner’s defense attorneys haven’t yet appealed his conviction. They declined to comment because a final judgment in the case is not set in stone.
Correction: This story was updated to correct the year Joyner was indicted, which was 2023.
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