McGill v. State

FERGUSON, Judge.

We dispose of this appeal on appellant’s first point: whether the trial court erred in seating an alternate juror after the juror had been discharged and the jury had already begun its deliberations, where the alternate juror, in answer to the court’s ex parte inquiry after discharge, answered that he would find the defendant guilty.

At the conclusion of the evidence, and after the jury had been instructed on the law in a trial for firearm possession by a convicted felon,1 the alternate juror was discharged and the jury retired to deliberate. The alternate juror was summoned to…