Local
Lincoln County Jury Duty Policy Throws Out Drug Case
By Bob Hudson
Sep 1, 2010 - 11:22:23 AM

On Tuesday, State Appellate Judges threw out the 2007 conviction of 44-year-old Donald Preston of Elsberry, because his jury may have been tainted by a since-discontinued Lincoln County court policy that let people get out of jury duty by paying $50 and performing community service. Prosecutor G. John Richards has been frustrated with this policy, which may affect 20 other cases.

The "Court Alternatives Program" was put into place in 2006 under Presiding Circuit Judge Dan Dildine. It was suspended at the end of 2008 after a public defender questioned it during jury selection in the murder trial of a man accused of killing Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt in 2001. Besides letting people dodge jury duty, the policy helped persons on probation fulfill community service obligations. Officials say Judge Dildine wanted to do something to accommodate people who would be significantly inconvenienced by having to serve on a jury. But the states Eastern District Court of Appeals ruled that the policy represented a failure to comply with the statutory jury selection requirements.

In the drug case, Preston, of Elsberry, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in August 2007 after a jury found him guilty of running a moving meth lab in his vehicle. Police said they found Preston and two other men with chemicals and paraphernalia used for making meth during a traffic stop in Elsberry in November 2005. One of the other men pleaded guilty; the other's charges were dropped. At his trial, seven jury candidates got out of jury duty under the policy. Preston's lawyer Mark Grothoff argued that if those seven people had been forced to serve, the jury pool would have been larger