http://news.mpr.org/features/200110/04_stawickie_supco/index.shtml
Supreme Court to decide whether jurors can ask questions at trials
By Elizabeth Stawicki, Minnesota Public Radio
October 4, 2001
Typically attorneys question witnesses during trials in Minnesota. But in Blue Earth County two years ago, a Mankato judge invited jurors to question the witnesses and even the man on trial. The state Supreme Court heard arguments about whether allowing jurors to ask questions violates a defendant's right to a fair trial.
A jury convicted Gerard Costello on several DWI-related charges in September 1999. During his trial, Judge Norbert Smith invited jurors to print their questions for witnesses anonymously on pieces of paper.
Arguing for Costello before the Minnesota Supreme Court, attorney Theodora Gaitas said allowing jurors to move out of their roles from impartial observers to participants, deprived Costello of his constitutional right to an impartial jury.
"Once you instruct a jury that they can take on this new role of questioning witnesses as inquisitors and not merely neutral and passive fact-finders, the right to a impartial jury is necessarily implicated," she said. Justice Ed Stringer: "Why does the fact that a juror has a question - maybe there's a gap in the facts," noted Justice Ed Stringer. "Why should it be implied that a juror is partial?"