Defense team member in McStay family murder trial takes Fifth Amendment in juror contact

A defense team member who approached two alternate jurors to ask them about appearing in a documentary in the capital murder case of Charles “Chase” Merritt invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a statement to the court Thursday.

Merritt is accused in the bludgeoning death of the four-member McStay family of Fallbrook in  February 2010. The family had recently moved to the San Diego County town from San Clemente.

Robert Wallace approached the alternate jurors while the regular panel was deliberating Merrit’s fate on May 30, the first full day of deliberations in the case. Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith on Monday ordered Wallace banned from the downtown San Bernardino Justice Center.

Thursday, jurors finished another day of deliberations, and will resume Friday morning.

Wallace, in his statement Thursday, said he was invoking the Fifth Amendment right because of “the expressed potential threat of contempt court proceedings and of potential criminal prosecution.” He said he also would invoke his right against self-incrimination if he is called to the witness stand to testify.

Smith had said members of the defense team could be held to the same standards as attorneys, but the lawyers in a brief filed Thursday distanced themselves, saying they could not be held in contempt or seen as complicit in jury tampering because of Wallace’s actions.

They said in a brief there had been plenty of warnings for people working on the defense team that jurors were not to be contacted while the trial was active.

Smith had asked for the statements after learning Wallace was a defense team member, saying he was contemplating at least a finding of contempt in the case.

Even before Judge Smith issued his courthouse ban on Wallace, defense lawyers told him to stay away from the venue after  “expressing great displeasure with Mr. Wallace concerning his contact with the jurors.”

They outlined how Wallace, and other defense team members including the documentary film crew, were told talking to jurors during trial was forbidden.

“Mr. Wallace was told by counsel at some points prior to trial, and at least some time after May 2018, that jurors were not to be filmed or contacted during the pendency of the case,” the brief says.

“Mr. Wallace was clearly given the appropriate instruction not to contact the jurors,” the brief said

Wallace had told Smith Monday he approached the two alternates “at the end of the proceedings… I mentioned to them that when the trial was over we would like to extend a voluntary invitation to talk with us. I understood that things weren’t concluded.”

Smith had told Wallace that he could face jury tampering charges or at least a finding of contempt of court.

Prosecutor Britt Imes had called Wallace a “hyper-aggressive” defense team member Monday, and asked Smith to talk to the 12 deliberating jurors to see if he had approached them during the more than five months of trial. Smith said he would consider it.

During the same hearing, defense attorney James McGee had described Wallace as a member of the defense team, saying Wallace’s roles included helping in the preparation of the trial and acting as a media liaison.

Wallace on Thursday also was described in defense papers as the man who introduced defense attorneys to the documentary team that has been video-recording the trial

Each of the three defense attorneys, as well as a defense private investigator, also gave Smith declarations that included outlines of discussions about not approaching jurors during the trial.

“I believe a reasonable person would understand that the jurors were not to be filmed or contacted based on the discussion of legal principles communicated to them over the course of many discussions,” attorney Jacob S. Guerard said in his declaration.

The prosecution is expected to respond.

Merritt, 62, has pleaded not guilty to the charges that he killed former business associate Joseph McStay, 40, his wife, Summer, 43, and their two children, Gianni, 4, and Joseph Jr., 3, in their San Diego County home on Feb. 4, 2010.

Their remains were found more than three years later in two shallow graves in the Mojave Desert, near Victorville.