Adventures in the Law: Crosswords

What a difference a space makes! Take the ten letters C-R-O-S-S-W-O-R-D-S. Without the space between the fifth and sixth letters, you have crosswords. As everyone knows, crosswords are puzzles that challenge the would-be solver to fill in the squares on a grid with letters, creating words that accurately respond to clues provided by the puzzle’s constructor.

The cross in the term crossword reflects the fact that the horizontal answers and the vertical answers intersect, or cross, one another. For example, a horizontal answer love might intersect a vertical answer short, crossing at the letter o in each of them.

But add the space between the fifth and sixth letters, and you have two words: cross words. And as everyone knows, cross words are words spoken sternly, reprovingly, or even angrily. That’s quite different from the quiet solitude of solving a crossword puzzle.

Curiously, though, both these terms—crosswords and cross words--came up in connection with a Florida murder trial. You might say that the two crossed paths in the trial. In fact, crosswords and cross words were the two reasons the judge granted the motion for a mistrial.

Let’s start with crosswords. How could crosswords be a cause of a mistrial? Well, it happened because one juror was caught working on crossword puzzles during witness testimony. She obeyed the judge when she was ordered to cease and desist, solving puzzles during testimony, and the trial proceeded.

So, what was the problem? The problem was that although she ceased her puzzle-solving during testimony, she resumed the habit during jury deliberations. The juror’s explanation? “Well, I didn’t know it was a bad thing. … I do that to concentrate, and I’m listening.” In other words, my eyes may have been on my crossword puzzle, but my ears were on the jury deliberations! But, one has to wonder, where was her mind?

That’s how crosswords became one of the causes of a murder trial mistrial. But what about the other cause: cross words? Well, as one juror explained to the judge in open court, there were loud, heated disagreements among jurors during deliberations. In fact, some of the disagreements became “racially motivated,” the juror explained to the judge.

Two jurors reported to the judge that words became so heated that they feared for their physical safety. A third juror, with a pacemaker implanted in his chest, reported an accelerated heart rate during the deliberations.

Disagreements that become loud and heated, that reflect racial motivation, that cause jurors to fear for their physical safety, and that heighten the heart rate of a pacemaker-implanted juror surely qualify as cross words.

We don’t know whether either of the two factors--the crosswords or the cross words—alone would have triggered a mistrial. What we do know is that together, the two caused the judge to declare a mistrial in this first-degree murder case. 

Now for a puzzle. The clue is Crosswords + Cross Words, eight letters.

Give up? It’s Mistrial.

The case is Florida v. Agee, 1^st Judicial Circuit of Florida.