Three jurors have apparently told reporters that the foreman "told them their verdicts had to be unamimous," and that they were "not allowed to be a hung jury."
Now IF this report is accurate, etc. etc. BTW, a local, highly experienced attorney tells us that scuttlebutt has it that the defense team was "out-lawyered" by the prosecution.
For example, in regard to the infamous, so-called "Subsequent Arrest" of the informant after he received immunity: it "officially" may have never happened. I.E., he was taken into custody, and released; never actually "arrested, or booked," so the prosecution felt they were technically correct in not disclosing this to the defense, and they followed up by successfully obtaining a gag order and the sealing of records.
Your tax dollars at work.
Well, verdicts do have to be unanimous, and judges to frown on 'hung juries', which I guess could be interpreted by some to be pushing them, but usually all communication by the judge to the jury is vetted past all the lawyers first.
I'm not sure what the rules are about the way foreman manipulate jurors. IN the one case I was a juror, the foreman did a LOT of manipulation, and it took a lot of effort to overcome his bias. I would imagine that a strong person on a jury could sway people pretty easily.
But post-case recantations of jurors are discounted, because once they are tainted with media coverage and possibly inquiries from the defendant lawyers or supports of the defendant, you can't be certain they are still speaking strictly based on the evidence in the case.
Some jurors might be swayed by the absurd sentences for example to be fighting the charge that caused the long sentence (NONE of the reports I've seen about the jurors says whether they were protesting ALL the guilty verdicts, or just one, or a couple -- I'm not saying there isn't a report that does state that, just I haven't seen it).
Or they could actually be threatened, or bribed, to change their position. Or maybe they read other evidence or conjecture that wasn't allowed to be presented because of lack of foundation or because the judge ruled it was not germane. Those would be things to include in the appeal, which I presume is slowly winding it's way up through the system -- or maybe they are focusing on the media blitz.
If you had another 3 jurors who insisted on guilt but corroborated the pressure, that would be the first step to getting the "juror" issue on the front burner. I haven't seen any other jurors agreeing that there was such pressure, but again maybe there was a report and we didn't see it.