Some Jurors in Massip Case Express Surprise, Disappointment

Some members of the jury that spent nearly a week deliberating before convicting accused child-killer Sheryl Lynn Massip of second-degree murder expressed surprise and disappointment Friday at the trial judge’s decision to toss out their verdict.

While several jurors in the case could not be reached or declined comment on Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald’s decision to overturn their Nov. 17 conviction of Massip, one panel member said, “I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.”

The jury of eight women and four men spent 6 1/2 days deliberating after the 2-month-long trial before returning a verdict that Massip was guilty of second-degree murder in the death of her baby son in 1987. They rejected her defense attorney’s claim that she was temporarily insane when she spent her 23rd birthday trying to kill her infant son.

After throwing him into oncoming traffic and striking him with a blunt instrument, the young mother, who claimed to be suffering from post-partum psychosis, eventually did kill her baby by running over him in the family car.

On Friday, Fitzgerald reversed the jury’s verdict in an extraordinary ruling that Massip was not guilty by reason of insanity when she ran over and killed her son.

His action came as a surprise to some of the jurors.

It also was a disappointment to juror Dean Johnson of Anaheim. Johnson, 37, a supervisor of computer programming for a petroleum company, said he was in his car, “driving between shopping trips early Friday afternoon when I heard about the decision” on the car radio.

“I was surprised; I didn’t particularly expect this,” he said. “But the best way to express my reaction is a little disappointment. If the jury had thought there was something wrong, we would have come back with a different verdict. We did our job based on the evidence that we heard.”

Johnson defended the panel’s deliberations as careful and methodical.

“We spent 6 1/2 days making a decision, and we went over every bit of physical evidence and went through the testimony at least three times,” he said. “We took a day and a half looking at the law. It’s not as if we didn’t do a thorough job. . . . “

After last month’s verdict, jury foreman Raymond Seymour, an airline pilot, said the Massip case affected him more profoundly than did his Air Force combat missions over Vietnam.

Despite the verdict that could have earned Massip a lengthy period in prison, Seymour, a 40-year-old Irvine resident, said after the trial, “I can only speak for myself, but I think that everyone there--we will pray for Sheryl.”

Told of the reversal, Seymour remarked: “Interesting. I don’t have any second thoughts. I’ve thought about it--I’m sure we all have--it surprises me, the judge’s ruling. But I can live with it.

“It does surprise me, but it doesn’t upset me,” he said.

As they had been after the trial, many of the Massip jurors were reluctant or unwilling to rehash the emotional case.

“I really don’t know what to say. . . . I guess I have a lot of thinking to do,” said juror Valerie Slimm of Dana Point. “It was hard on all of us; I think we all tried to put it behind us. I’m not sure if this makes it any easier or harder to do that now.”

The wife of another juror, Larry Rosette of Orange, said, “All he wants to say is ‘no comment.’ ”

Johnson was philosophic.

“We took our best shot, and fortunately or unfortunately, according to how you view it, the judge looked on this differently,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what the public reaction to this is. There wasn’t much reaction to the jury’s verdict (in November), but what reaction there was seemed to be negative.

“One letter in a newspaper called our decision ‘barbaric.’ I don’t know what to expect now,” he said, adding, “I guess it’s going to be up to future lawyers to decide what kind of impact this decision has.”