I have serious concerns about crowdfunding jurors, but I am especially opposed to crowdfunding a juror based on the position he took in deliberations.
Turning jury service, and specifically a particular vote, into something financially rewarding is abhorrent to me and frankly goes against everything the judiciary is supposed to stand for. I know public confidence in that ideal is already badly strained, but this makes it worse.
The largest of these fundraisers is framed around his role as the holdout, and the total climbed substantially after he went public with his defense of his vote. The moment that money becomes a reward for a particular vote, you create an incentive that has no place in a jury room, and every juror in the next high-profile trial will know it.
Counsel's handling has not helped. In roughly a day he went from calling the existing fundraisers "100% FAKE," to clarifying that unauthorized "does not in any way mean unappreciated," to announcing that he will establish an "authorized, consolidated, and official fundraiser for our Heroic Holdout moving forward."
This is less than two weeks out from a status hearing on whether the Commonwealth retries this case.
As it stands, we essentially have no framework for what happens when strangers send a discharged juror six figures immediately after trial because of the position he is publicly credited with taking. This has never been addressed previously by our laws, because it never had to be. I would argue that this seems like a great time to do so.