A woman who lied her way onto the jury in the murder trial of a childhood friend and then refused to convict him was sentenced yesterday to a 6 1/2 -year prison term.
Jovanda Blackson, who knew the defendant and his wife from middle school, broke down yesterday in D.C. Superior Court as she apologized for her actions. Stymied by Blackson, the jury was unable to return a verdict on charges against her friend and his co-defendant.
The plot was uncovered weeks after the mistrial, almost by chance, and the evidence that was uncovered bolstered the government's retrial of the men, who were convicted this year.
Judge Erik P. Christian, who heard the original murder trial as well as the retrial, said the eventual convictions do not make what Blackson did any less serious. "You must be held accountable for what you did," Christian told Blackson.
Never before, he said, had he seen something quite like the obstruction that derailed the government's case against Lamiek Fortson and Harry Ellis. The two were on trial in the June 28, 2002, killing of Gerald L. Whitfield, 27, who was kicked and beaten to death in an alley along Holbrook Street NE.
"You basically showed an utter disdain for the law," Christian told Blackson.
Prosecutors said Blackson, 28, who had no criminal record, nevertheless had reason to feel hostile toward the U.S. attorney's office. The office was prosecuting her brother on murder and racketeering charges, and a close cousin was facing murder charges in the District as well.
With all that on her mind, prosecutors said, Blackson showed up for jury duty May 2, 2005, and was sent to Christian's courtroom. Fortson and Blackson saw each other, prosecutors said. She winked at him -- a sign, he would later say, that she was going to take care of him.
But first she needed a seat on the jury. So when the questions came, she lied, not disclosing that she knew Fortson and his wife, Erica Williams, and not revealing anything about her brother's and cousin's charges.
During a break in jury selection, Blackson and Williams saw each other in the restroom and embraced. Blackson told Williams she could help Fortson if she were selected for the jury. To ensure that she was not struck from the jury pool, Blackson gave her juror number to Williams to pass on to Fortson's attorney.
When opening statements began later that week, Blackson was in seat No. 4. Over the course of the trial, she talked by phone to Williams, who in turn talked to Fortson.
Once deliberations were underway, it became clear that Blackson didn't have a lot of company in an acquittal vote. But she held out, forcing a mistrial.
A complaint from another juror in the case, a tip from a jailhouse informant about a plot to derail the retrial and recordings of Fortson's jailhouse calls to his wife ultimately unraveled the plot and helped set up the convictions of Fortson and Ellis this year.
On May 5, Blackson pleaded guilty to conspiracy, contempt and obstruction of justice, and yesterday Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer M. Anderson asked the judge to impose a sentence that would deter such conduct.