February 11, 2009, 14:14
Andrea Walternate jurors HB 1086
We had a case recently where the alternate was back in the jury room for 10-20 minutes before the bailiff realized his mistake and got him out. We had to have a whole hearing about whether he had participated in deliberations or not. I agree that it's absolutely better practice to have the alternate just wait in another area, but it would be nice to have a finding that it's not an automatic reversal if you mess up.