After reading The Signal’s news story about how a murder trial ended in a mistrial Monday at the San Fernando Courthouse, including a prosecutor’s comment that they “ran out of jurors,” one of those jurors reached out to The Signal to share experiences from the jury room, including an account of a juror’s use of social media that led the judge to declare a mistrial.
The juror requested anonymity due to the nature of the crime involved: Grigor Hovsepyan, 25, of Granada Hills, is accused of fatally shooting Gavin Unzueta, a College of the Canyons student who was egging cars near Hovsepyan’s home with two friends when they struck Hovsepyan’s ride.
Hovsepyan is charged with the murder of Unzueta and the attempted murder of Unzueta’s friends, Nick Sanchez and Paul Lopez, on May 1, 2024.
Both sides are now expected back in court Dec. 16 for a conference on a potential schedule for Hovsepyan’s next trial. The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office indicated this week it is definitely planning to pursue another trial.
In a phone interview Tuesday, the first-time juror said the monthlong process was eye-opening, revealing significant flaws in the jury system that the juror blamed on the inattentiveness and lack of consideration of fellow jurors.
“It was really disgusting to witness all of this, and it was just really highlighting how messed up the jury system is — the way that they’re selected, the way that they assume that everybody has common sense, but several people didn’t, and it was just an absolute mess,” the juror said.
The juror described deliberations as becoming a “really toxic environment,” saying some jurors “at a certain point were just like, ‘I’m not interested in talking about this anymore.’ They were on their phones because they didn’t want to be involved in the conversation.”
And cellphone activity ended up being what brought the trial to a halt, according to the minute order.
The juror said the jury was split roughly down the middle when it first got the case on the afternoon of Nov. 2, according to a tally the jurors had taken.
But when deliberations began in earnest, so did the problems, the juror said.
At one point, jurors argued over the meaning of the words “consciously” and “deliberately” — elements of first-degree murder — rather than looking at the evidence, according to the juror.
Italia Sosa, Hovsepyan’s girlfriend, who testified to being in the car at the time of the shooting, refused to testify several times outside the jury’s presence. Once she finally took the stand, her testimony at times seemed less than entirely honest, the juror said, although she did testify to being in the car when the shooting occurred. Sosa was in custody throughout the trial on a separate, unrelated first-degree burglary charge.
The juror also said it was hard to tell at times whether she was testifying in support of Hovsepyan or against him, as well as whether she was being truthful.
“I think the reason why they really brought her in was to try and show the type of people that Grigor hung out with, as though, more of like a character thing, but people were very willing to overlook that fact, which is a shame,” the juror said.
By the middle of the third day of deliberations, a juror was excused after being unable to continue because of a personal scheduling conflict.
An alternate was brought in, but another juror, No. 4, quickly raised concerns about the replacement juror’s “demeanor about the deliberation process,” according to the minute order for Department J on Nov. 4. The accused person was identified as Juror No. 3 in the minute order.
No action was taken that evening regarding the concern, according to the court record, and the jury was ordered to return the next day.
On Nov. 5, another juror was excused. Juror No. 2 had passed a note to the bailiff in the morning. It’s not clear what the note said, but the juror was questioned by the judge and indicated she was able to proceed, according to the minute order. At 4:19 p.m., she passed another note indicating she could not. She was questioned again and then excused.
Another replacement juror was impaneled, leaving no more alternates, according to a member of the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office speaking on background.
Those 12 jurors were ordered back to Department J to continue deliberations Monday.
At that point, another allegation of juror misconduct arose: that one of the jurors had looked at Sosa’s social media accounts and shared what she found with the other jurors.
The accused juror initially denied the allegation, according to a witness.
“They brought out the other juror, who I guess was part of the conversation, and they were like, ‘No, this definitely happened.’ And then when they brought out the juror who lied about it, then they admitted, like, ‘OK, yeah, I did do this,’ and then they just excused (the juror),” said the juror who spoke on condition of anonymity.
L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Shakay Crawford, who was part of the prosecution, confirmed that all the jurors were questioned in open court after the concern was brought to Judge Hayden Zacky.
“The court finds Juror No. 5 checked witness Sosa’s Instagram account and conducted her own investigation,” according to the minute order for Monday. “The court finds good cause that Juror No. 5 has been compromised and will be unable to perform the duties of a juror.”
Zacky discharged the juror over the objections of the defense, leaving the trial with only 11 jurors, resulting in the mistrial.
