{"id":134112,"date":"2025-09-29T15:28:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/09\/29\/tiktok-fails-to-win-donna-adelson-a-new-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T15:28:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:28:36","slug":"tiktok-fails-to-win-donna-adelson-a-new-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/09\/29\/tiktok-fails-to-win-donna-adelson-a-new-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"TikTok Fails To Win Donna Adelson A New Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the 2014 murder of law professor Dan Markel, gunned down by a pair of hitmen, suspicions quickly fell upon Markel\u2019s former in-laws. One of the hit men infamously told authorities that they did it because \u201cthe lady wants her two kids back,\u201d seemingly referring to Markel\u2019s ex-wife. The wheels turned relatively slowly, but prosecutors worked their way up the tree, from the gunmen, to one of the assassins\u2019 former girlfriends, Katherine Magbanua<\/a>, who hired them<\/a>, to Markel\u2019s former brother-in-law Charlie Adelson<\/a>, who also dated Magbanua. Finally, earlier this month, a jury convicted Markel\u2019s mother-in-law Donna Adelson for her role in arranging the plot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adelson then launched a Hail Mary effort to get a new trial, citing juror media use. The judge has now rejected that bid<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Juror No. 7 had posted on TikTok during the trial that she had been selected as a juror, Adelson\u2019s lawyers\u00a0said in a new trial motion<\/a>. But Everett said the juror did not reveal the parties in the case, the attorneys, the alleged crimes, whether it was criminal or civil, or even the location of the trial. As a result, she did not communicate \u201cabout this case\u201d as banned by jury instructions, he concluded.<\/p>\n

The text displayed over juror No. 7\u2019s video had said, \u201cWhen I told God I needed a break, and he makes it so I am selected to serve on a jury for a two week trial\u2026 won\u2019t he do it,\u201d and included a happy face. A caption read, \u201cNo work, no kids (for most of the day) yk what\u2026 heaven yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sing it, sister. <\/p>\n

While perhaps betraying a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the civic duty at hand to describe it as a state-sponsored vacation, there\u2019s nothing explicitly wrong with indicating that you\u2019re on jury duty. The more nuanced argument contends that this description provided enough for someone to work out what trial the juror would hear, but that proved a stretch without any other information.<\/p>\n

Adelson also complained of the juror talking about the experience after the trial \u2014 which is actually fine \u2014 and another juror who told a podcast after the fact that he\u2019d paid attention to the defendant\u2019s reaction to testimony even though he\u2019d said he hadn\u2019t done that in other comments. The judge brushed away that concern too, explaining that there\u2019s nothing wrong with observing the defendant. <\/p>\n

With Adelson not getting a new trial, the case will move forward to sentencing.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Jury Reaches Verdict In Donna Adelson Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post TikTok Fails To Win Donna Adelson A New Trial<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

After the 2014 murder of law professor Dan Markel, gunned down by a pair of hitmen, suspicions quickly fell upon Markel\u2019s former in-laws. One of the hit men infamously told authorities that they did it because \u201cthe lady wants her two kids back,\u201d seemingly referring to Markel\u2019s ex-wife. The wheels turned relatively slowly, but prosecutors worked their way up the tree, from the gunmen, to one of the assassins\u2019 former girlfriends, Katherine Magbanua<\/a>, who hired them<\/a>, to Markel\u2019s former brother-in-law Charlie Adelson<\/a>, who also dated Magbanua. Finally, earlier this month, a jury convicted Markel\u2019s mother-in-law Donna Adelson for her role in arranging the plot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adelson then launched a Hail Mary effort to get a new trial, citing juror media use. The judge has now rejected that bid<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Juror No. 7 had posted on TikTok during the trial that she had been selected as a juror, Adelson\u2019s lawyers\u00a0said in a new trial motion<\/a>. But Everett said the juror did not reveal the parties in the case, the attorneys, the alleged crimes, whether it was criminal or civil, or even the location of the trial. As a result, she did not communicate \u201cabout this case\u201d as banned by jury instructions, he concluded.<\/p>\n

The text displayed over juror No. 7\u2019s video had said, \u201cWhen I told God I needed a break, and he makes it so I am selected to serve on a jury for a two week trial\u2026 won\u2019t he do it,\u201d and included a happy face. A caption read, \u201cNo work, no kids (for most of the day) yk what\u2026 heaven yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sing it, sister. <\/p>\n

While perhaps betraying a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the civic duty at hand to describe it as a state-sponsored vacation, there\u2019s nothing explicitly wrong with indicating that you\u2019re on jury duty. The more nuanced argument contends that this description provided enough for someone to work out what trial the juror would hear, but that proved a stretch without any other information.<\/p>\n

Adelson also complained of the juror talking about the experience after the trial \u2014 which is actually fine \u2014 and another juror who told a podcast after the fact that he\u2019d paid attention to the defendant\u2019s reaction to testimony even though he\u2019d said he hadn\u2019t done that in other comments. The judge brushed away that concern too, explaining that there\u2019s nothing wrong with observing the defendant. <\/p>\n

With Adelson not getting a new trial, the case will move forward to sentencing.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Jury Reaches Verdict In Donna Adelson Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the 2014 murder of law professor Dan Markel, gunned down by a pair of hitmen, suspicions quickly fell upon Markel\u2019s former in-laws. One of the hit men infamously told authorities that they did it because \u201cthe lady wants her two kids back,\u201d seemingly referring to Markel\u2019s ex-wife. The wheels turned relatively slowly, but prosecutors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":134101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Headshot-300x200-Cw70pc.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}