By David Bash

The Seattle Medium The law firm who represented the Robert Thomas Sr. estate in a $25 Million wrongful-death lawsuit against King County deputy sheriff Mel Miller, in the 2002 shooting death of Robert Thomas Sr., has filed a mistrial-motion to have that verdict set aside, in Miller’s favor, and set a new trial date because one of the jurors worked for a company the defense represented. In the latest developments, a letter sent Friday to the federal judge in the case, where the jury handed down the April 8th unanimous verdict acquitting Deputy Melvin Miller, the deputy’s defense attorney Frederick Meyers of the law firm Mills Meyers Swartling disclosed that one of the jurors works for a company the law firm represented. That is a potential conflict of interest. Attorney Bradley Marshall, who represented Thomas’ family in the $25 million case, in a motion, filed on Monday, asked for a new trial, citing what he termed as a “polluted jury.” “The only questions are how much is it going to cost and when is the new trial,” he said. In the letter to U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly, defense attorney Meyers wrote that the juror works for Regence Blue Shield, which his law firm represents. And Meyers wrote in the letter that the juror’s connection was discovered last Tuesday – after the trial – when the juror participated in a conference call with staff from Mills Meyers Swartling and the juror later told an associate of the law firm that he had participated in the Thomas case. According to the letter, the associate had also taken part in one or two previous conference calls with the juror in 2004. The King County prosecutors office media relations person, Dan Donahue, said that he was not an attorney but that Miller’s lawyers “felt obligated” to report the new information. “There’s no excuse for it,” complained attorney Marshal. “We were not informed [during trial] and we are requesting that the judge set aside the verdict. ” Routinely in jury trials jurors fill out forms asking for whom they work and on the form the juror had disclosed that he worked for Regence Blue Shield. The defense claims it was an oversight that they did not discover the conflict of interest. Marshal contends that because one of the juror’s employers was represented by the defense team it created a conflict of interest and constituted a “polluted jury pool.” He said that juries are synergistic and that one juror significantly impacts the decision of the group. “That juror could have been the one,” he said. “It’s hard to say when the judge will rule, he’ll probably order an investigation first,” Marshal said. When asked what he would do differently if granted a new trial, Marshal said, “Theoretically [if] we get to do it over and we’ll ask for a racially diverse jury.” New wrongful death lawsuitAdd-2New wrongful death law suit by David Bash 4/18/2005