A day after the jurors deciding the fate of San Jose’s State former athletic trainer accused of sexually assaulting female athletes hit a “rough patch” and ended deliberations early, the federal judge in the case admonished them Thursday to “not to bully or antagonize other jurors.”
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman also acknowledged to the eight women and four men who filed back into the courtroom that “the jury room is very small” and offered them an empty courtroom. But even that appeared to divide at least a couple of jurors, with the foreman nodding his head vigorously for more space and another juror saying they didn’t need it.
The judge’s latest instructions came at the start of the fourth day of deliberations in the trial over whether Scott Shaw touched former athletes under their sports bras and underwear inappropriately, or whether doing so was medically legitimate treatment.
The dust up provided a rare glimpse into secret jury deliberations in a case that rocked San Jose State University. The scandal led to the resignations of the university president and athletic director who were left trying to explain why its director of Sports Medicine, who had been accused by 17 swimmers in 2009 of sexually abusing them under the guise of treatment, was still working with athletes a decade later. Shaw, 56, has pleaded not guilty to six federal civil rights charges for violating the constitutional rights to “bodily integrity” of four former athletes who came forward with complaints since 2017, within the five-year statute of limitations. Shaw voluntarily left the university in 2020.
Before sending them back to the jury room, the judge urged each juror to come to a “sincerely held conclusion” and to not succumb to “pressure from other jurors.”
If the jury doesn’t reach a verdict by the end of Thursday, they will take Friday off and return Monday. The jury had requested the break to accommodate the schedule of one of the jurors.
Check back for more on this developing story.