Supreme Court of Oklahoma Suspends Prosecutor Who Spied on Jury Deliberations in Murder Trial

In a first, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma has suspended a prosecutor who spied on jury deliberations in a murder trial? So, what happened? Let’s look at Tuesday’s opinion of the court in State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Shields, 2025 WL 912682 (Okla. 2025).

In Shields, Isaac Shields “was the lead prosecutor in the first-degree murder trial of State of Oklahoma v. Robert Kent Kraft, CF-2018-0465.” 

As a carryover of COVID-safety protocols, the district court judge, Judge Pazzo, had the jury conduct deliberations in an adjacent courtroom on the fourth floor rather than the smaller, confined jury-deliberation room. The courtroom where the jury deliberated was equipped with three security cameras which were not turned off. One camera showed 95% of the courtroom.

The video feed from the courtroom cameras could be monitored from a locked security office on the first floor in the building, with no audio available.

Here is how the court described what happened during deliberations:

At approximately 5:00 p.m., an officer allowed [Shields] into the security office where the video feed was playing. [Shields] alleged that the security team requested his presence in the office to help resolve an ongoing security situation….All of the members of the security team who testified denied requesting [Shields]’s assistance with a security issue and also agreed that the specific security incident [Shields] mentioned actually happened several hours later. The officer who allowed [Shields] to enter the room could not recall why he did so, but testified that he knew he did not allow [Shields] in due to the later security problem because he received a call asking how to handle the security issue after he was home….[Shields] testified that “[w]hatever little security issue that was there, I mean, within a second or two, that had been resolved.”…After [Shields] entered the security room he did not immediately leave. Instead, according to his testimony, he stayed because of curiosity about what was taking the jury so long and because he had nothing else to do while awaiting the outcome….

Over the next several hours, Respondent left the security room and returned numerous times. Out of security footage covering 168 minutes, [Shields] was in the security room for approximately 132 minutes while the jury deliberated. [Shields] left repeatedly to smoke, to eat food that his fiancee had brought to the courthouse, and when the jury had questions. After [Shields] had been in the security office for some time, he called his second chair, Assistant District Attorney George Gibbs, and instructed him to come to the security office.

While [Shields] was in the security office, he watched the jurors deliberate, he manipulated the cameras to zoom in and out, and he discussed with his second chair and the security officers his observations and conclusions based upon what he could see of the jury. At one point, the jury submitted the question, “Does a hung jury give the chance for the State to retry?” to which the judge responded “You have all of the information that you need.”…At the time the jury submitted the question, [Shields] believed the jury was split 11 to 1 from his observations. When [Shields] observed the jury submit the question on the video, [Shields] immediately left to go to the courtroom for the presentation of the question. [Shields] did not disclose to the judge or opposing counsel that he had been observing the jury, or that he had an idea of what the actual vote might be at that moment.

In suspending Shields for six months, the court ruled as follows:

It is common knowledge that observing jury deliberations is unacceptable. [Shields]’s actions were widely reported in the media, bringing discredit and shame upon the legal profession. As a result, there is sure to be a chilling effect on potential jurors whom have heard of this matter. An assistant district attorney is a minister of justice, second only to a judge….But instead of behaving accordingly, [Shields]’s actions “take us into the dark, unseen, ugly, shocking nightmare vision of a prosecutor who loves victory more than he loves justice.”…[Shields]’s behavior is precisely the type that undermines public trust in the legal system and profession. The privacy of jury deliberations is sacrosanct. The importance of preserving the sanctity of jury proceedings is monumental. As such, the discipline imposed must reflect to the public how seriously we treat this misconduct. We find that suspension for six months is the appropriate discipline.

-CM