Castillo v. Florida, Secretary of DOC

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

A juror was absent during the second day of the three days of testimony in a state criminal trial. Then she was either replaced by an alternate and did not participate in deliberations and reaching a verdict, or she was not replaced and did participate. One might think it would be simple to tell what happened because the juror either did or didn’t participate after being absent from a day of testimony. It is not a simple matter, however, largely because of a series of mistakes bordering on blunders committed by various attorneys representing the State of Florida at one…