Attorney claims jury misconduct in Livingston officer’s trial

A Merced Superior Court judge denied a motion Thursday to release jury contact information to the attorney of a Livingston police officer convicted in June of assaulting a man in handcuffs.

Officer Tyson Perry, 38, was found guilty of felony assault by a public officer on June 24. The second felony faced by the officer, battery with serious bodily injury, was reduced to a lesser misdemeanor count of simple battery. Prosecutors said Perry used too much force on Dwight Larks, 39, a real estate agent, during a custody exchange May 21, 2012.

Perry was a sergeant before the incident, but was never arrested. He still is employed by the Livingston Police Department, officials have confirmed, although it’s unclear in what capacity.

The officer’s attorney, Alison Berry Wilkinson, made a motion for the jury’s information, she said, to conduct interviews in an attempt to obtain a new trial. She argued that the jurors who convicted Perry were rushed, confused, didn’t understand all of the jury instructions and may have made a compromise in the jury room.

Judges typically instruct jurors not to be an advocate for one side or the other, but to weigh the evidence presented at trial.

Wilkinson said she spoke to a juror after the conviction before coming to the conclusion there may have been jury misconduct. “We should be permitted to explore that,” she told Judge David W. Moranda in court Thursday.

Deputy District Attorney Thomas Min, who prosecuted the case, noted that jurors were polled after the conviction and all reported the finding to be accurate. He called the defense attorney’s claimed discussion with a juror “hearsay.”

Moranda denied the motion for jury information, but granted Wilkinson’s motion to delay the sentencing hearing until September.

The officer could face a sentence of probation to three years in prison, officials confirmed. He is set to return to court for a sentencing hearing at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 22.

Perry was supervising a custody exchange between Larks and the mother of Larks’ 15-year-old daughter on May 21, 2012. The incident took place outside Larks’ former home in Livingston. Prosecutors said the arrest was “personal.”

Larks claims to have dated the officer’s wife in 2002, and has said the officer used the word “karma” before taking him to jail.

Prosecutors said Perry acted as a “rogue cop” and a “bully” and did not try to calm the tense custody exchange; instead, prosecutors said, he was “throwing fuel on the fire.”

Larks and an independent witness testified that the officer took a handcuffed Larks to the ground and then used his hand to ram the man’s face into the concrete a second time.

The conviction could have ramifications on the city of Livingston as Larks has filed a lawsuit against Perry, the city and Michael Baker, another officer who responded to the custody exchange. Baker now works out of the area.

Larks, in his lawsuit, is seeking an unspecified amount of compensation for his medical care, loss of wages and distress, as well as the “deprivation of civil rights,” according to the claim filed in Merced Superior Court. That case is set for next year.

This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 2:41 PM with the headline "Attorney claims jury misconduct in Livingston officer’s trial."