The trial for a nanny accused of shaking a Roseville baby and causing fatal brain injuries will continue, a judge decided Wednesday.
The source of Placer Superior Court Judge Colleen Nichols' anger was a campaign letter, signed by the baby's mother, that was in a congressional candidate's campaign mailer.
Mary Beth Acton, the lawyer for Veronica Martinez Salcedo, said in a written motion to the court Monday that the letter essentially convicted her client before the trial has been completed. Acton said the letter from Lorena Juceam amounted to "jury tampering" because jurors in Martinez Salcedo's current trial may have received the campaign literature from Doug Ose, who was running for the 4th Congressional District seat.
When court resumed Wednesday morning, Nichols questioned each of the 12 jurors and the five alternates individually in her office.
More than an hour later, she re-entered the courtroom and said that, though she was unhappy about the letter, she was satisfied jurors had not been tainted by it.
Martinez Salcedo is in her second trial on a charge of assault on a child causing death. Prosecutors allege she shook a crying Hannah Rose Juceam so violently on May 11, 2006, that it caused fatal brain injuries. Acton said her client shook the 16-month-old baby only lightly when she found her unresponsive. Acton said Hannah might have had an illness or that the injuries might have occurred at the hands of others before the day Martinez Salcedo was watching the child.
The current trial is in its second month. A first trial last year ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction.
Call The Bee's Art Campos, (916) 773-2825.
