IANAL either, but no, reading a transcript is something a juror will do to clarify or to refresh memory on what was said during the trial. How is that hearsay?

As for the foreign language only juror, are non-English speaking jurors excluded from a jury pool? That’s something I’ve never even thought about.

I am not against having deaf people in juries, but there are times when a deaf person would be at a clear disadvantage.

Even if each side gets an expert to attest to the “significance” of the nuance, the fact of the matter is that the juror cannot evaluate what the experts are saying because he cannot hear that which the the testimony is based. You are therefore back to the same thing – the juror must either totally ignore the evidence or rely on what other jurors heard.

Neither is right for either side.

Quoting the newpaper article: The court concluded that boat owner Scott Speer of Fairlawn didn’t receive a fair trial because a hearing-impaired woman was on the jury and she couldn’t fully comprehend the vocal nuances in Speer’s 911 call, a key piece of evidence in the case.

For all of those here that are saying how silly the argument that disabled people should not be excluded from jury service, what about in the case where a lack of a sense prohibits a person from actually examining a piece of evidence?

In this case, the evidence was a 911 tape that one juror could not hear or hear well enough.

How can it be fair to either the prosecution or the defense that one person on the jury cannot examine a piece of evidence? Won’t that juror have to either simply not take into account that piece of evidence or rely on other jurors to communicate what the evidence indicated, therefore eliminating the disabled juror’s ability to evaluate evidence on their own?