Ashley Benefield trial: Judge will interview jurors after claims of misconduct

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A judge granted Ashley Benefield’s defense attorneys their request to interview the jurors from her manslaughter conviction after claiming juror misconduct.

Benefield was convicted for shooting her husband Doug Benefield dead in 2020. Initially, she was accused of second-degree murder, but the jury convicted her on the lesser charge.

In an objection filed by the State Attorney’s Office for the 12th Judicial Circuit, the allegations were described as a juror not disclosing that she was a victim of domestic batter and another juror having a cell phone in the jury room.

The State Attorney’s Office said the defense claimed the first juror was untruthful in her juror questionnaire, but prosecutors countered that there was no evidence that the juror deliberately withheld the information and argued that she may have misunderstood the question asking if she had any involvement in “child custody/domestic violence/ abuse matters.”

According to the prosecution’s argument, they believe that the juror being a prior victim of domestic violence “would have been sympathetic to the defendant’s theory of the case and potentially biased against the State.”

As such, the State argued that her history as a victim of domestic violence was not proven to be relevant to her jury service.

The other claim from the defense alleged that a juror had an unauthorized flip phone/cell phone into deliberations, citing anonymous comments made on Law and Crime’s Verdict’s watch. The defense claimed a woman not affiliated with the case came to the defense and showed them the screenshots.

The defense tried to call this woman as a witness, but Judge Stephen Whyte denied their request.

However, the State Attorney’s Office countered that the screenshots used by the defense only had the commenter’s username, “That-Hoodie Guy,” and no other identifying information. The anonymous claimed to be the brother of a juror and that he got texts from her “flip-phone” while she was in the jury room.

Prosecutors pointed out an inconsistency in the anonymous comments made by “That-Hoodie Guy” online.

“She just text me this ‘PER SOURCES 5-1 GUILTY WITH MAN STUCK ON NOT GUILTY OR MANSLAUGHTER,'” the comment said.

The defense said the comment was made two minutes before the verdict came out.

The prosecution argued that if the man really was getting information from a juror, why would she text her brother “per sources?” In their objection, the state argued the person was lying to get attention.

According to the state’s objection, there were no reported instances of juror misconduct in sharing information about the case outside the court.

However, Whyte determined there was sufficient evidence to grant the defense’s request to interview the jurors. All six jurors will be brought in for a two-hour period to be interviewed at a later date.

Doug’s cousin, Tommie Benefield, said his family wants everything done properly and has no problem with the judge’s decision.

“Finally after 3 years and 10 months of being out with only an ankle bracelet, she is sitting in jail,” Tommie said. “If there is a mistrial and a retrial, we’re going to make sure she stays in jail the second time around, so we’re okay with it being fair.”

News Channel 8 reporter Nicole Rogers asked, “Now that [Ashley] is behind bars, if she could hear you today, what you want her to hear from you?”

“It’s most sad to us that their child, Doug and Ashley’s child, is going to grow up with neither a father nor a mother from the time she’s 6 years old to the time she’s probably 31-36 years old,” Tommie replied. “25-30 years from now.”

“That’s the sad thing from the choices Ashley made,” she continued.

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