LUBBOCK, Texas — The defense of Charles “DJ Sancho” Sanchez has moved for mistrial Tuesday after several jurors were caught on social media, violating court orders to abstain from it to avoid the risk of bias, according to court documents.
During a trial, jurors reacting to news articles on social media violates the defendant’s right to a fair trial, but the state argued that Sanchez’ defense must show “actual harm has been done.”
According to court documents, jurors were spoken to individually regarding the incident.
Sanchez was accused of indecency in October 2019, for inappropriately touching two girls, one being younger than 14 years of age. On Friday, a Lubbock jury found him guilty of committing such acts.
In opening statements of the punishment phase for Sanchez, the state asked the jury to consider a sentence of anywhere from two to 20 years in prison or 10 years of probation.
Sanchez’ defense argued that he did not need to be placed behind bars and that “this is brutal to Charles.” Sanchez was seeing crying in the courtroom.
The sentencing phase continued as of noon on Tuesday. He was convicted by the same jury last week.
