Don't leave a loaded dictionary on the shelf

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

Idaho jury's use of dictionary voids conviction on gun charge
  Thursday, May 18, 2000
  THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
  COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- A federal judge has ordered a new trial for a woman
convicted of illegally possessing a machine gun after finding a jury
improperly used a dictionary during deliberations.
  U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge concluded the jury's action may have
affected JoAnn K. Peterson's right to a fair trial.
  Lodge set the second federal firearms trial for June 20 in an order Monday
overturning Peterson's March 3 jury conviction.
  She remains in jail without bond.
  The 63-year-old grandmother was to have been sentenced Tuesday.
  A female juror from Coeur d'Alene admitted she found the paperback
Webster's II dictionary on a hallway bookshelf during a break outside the
jury room.
  Court documents say the woman took the dictionary into the jury room late
on the first day of deliberations. Jurors looked up the definition for
"machine gun" and trigger "function" and compared them with legal definitions
in jury instructions.
  When the dictionary was found in the jury deliberation room after the
trial, the judge took the unusual step of allowing the defense and
prosecution to contact the jurors.
  "A defendant is entitled to a new trial where there is a possibility that
extrinsic material could have affected the verdict," Lodge said, quoting an
appeals court ruling.
  The second federal trial for Peterson likely will delay her extradition to
Spokane, where she faces an unrelated charge of aggravated first-degree
murder.
  That charge stems from the 1991 shotgun execution-style killing of her
former son-in-law.