Jury compromised on $1

Churchill $1 award result of one juror

Five on the six-person jury wanted to give the fired professor more.Five of six jurors favored awarding fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill as much as $110,000 or more—while a single juror insisted he get nothing, a juror and Churchill's attorney said Friday.

The jury of four women and two men debated, at times uncomfortably, for more than four hours before agreeing on an award of $1, juror Bethany Newill said.The holdout's thinking:[T]he juror who opposed compensation "was like: Well, I can't," Newill said, declining to identify that juror.

"She was like, she couldn't even stand to give him a dollar. We saw where she was coming from. She felt that he ruined his own reputation and that when you put something out there, even though it is protected speech, there are consequences."

With the lone holdout refusing to come around and the possibility of a hung jury looming, the others eventually agreed to the notion of a symbolic award of $1. More drama to come:Lane now is preparing to push for Churchill's reinstatement on CU's Boulder campus.

He'll file a motion within 30 days asking Denver Chief District Judge Larry Naves to order CU "to give him back his office . . . and leave him alone," Lane said. "Anything that is deemed retaliatory is another lawsuit. If they look at him cross-eyed, they could very well end up back in court."

Naves has the option of ordering CU to reinstate Churchill or to shell out "front pay" instead, in which case Lane said he'd seek "five to 10 years at $110,000 a year (Churchill's salary before he was fired) plus interest."Comment:  So the $1 award was a compromise...but the jury seemed clear on the verdict. The university was wrong and (most thought) Churchill deserved a big award.

For more on the subject, see Churchill Jury Got It Right and Churchill Wins His Case.