Overview:
• Former Terry Sanford basketball player Miya Giles-Jones tried to get a $2.5 million judgement from Thurston ‘T.J.’ Robinson
• After a jury rejected her claim, she learned that one of the jurors asked one of the witnesses for a date
• Should this misconduct give her a new trial? The N.C. Court of Appeals said ‘no’
Former Terry Sanford High School basketball player Miya Giles-Jones should not be awarded a new trial after she lost her sexual assault lawsuit against her former coach and his wife, Thurston “T.J.” Robinson and Charlotte Robinson, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled this month.
The panel of three judges voted 2-1 against Giles-Jones. She can ask the North Carolina Supreme Court to review and overturn the decision and grant her a new trial. She had sought the new trial after it came to light that one of the jurors had engaged in misconduct by asking one of the witnesses for a date during the trial, and just minutes after she had testified.
Giles-Jones, who played college basketball for Fordham University in New York, is now a forward for Florida A&M.
Separate from Giles-Jones’ civil lawsuit, the Cumberland County District Attorney Office pursued criminal sexual misconduct charges against Robinson regarding Giles-Jones and two other players he had coached.
Robinson fiercely denied the accusations. Those charges—allegations of misdemeanor sexual battery, felony taking indecent liberties with a student, and felony indecent exposure—were dropped this past March after the other two players stopped cooperating with the District Attorney Office, CityView previously reported.
T.J. and Charlotte Robinson are known for establishing the nonprofit T.J. Robinson Life Center community and recreation facility in Hope Mills.
A $2.5 Million Lawsuit and Juror Misconduct
In January 2023, Giles-Jones sued the Robinsons. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office levied criminal charges against T.J. Robinson on the sexual assault allegations. Robinson had been a girls’ basketball coach in Fayetteville at Terry Sanford High School and an assistant coach at E.E. Smith High School, and also coached for the Amateur Athletic Union, he testified in 2024.
He had stopped coaching in 2022 when the sexual assault accusations were reported.
The lawsuit went to trial in May 2024. Giles-Jones and the Robinsons testified. Her lawyers asked the jury for a $2.5 million judgment.
The jury was unpersuaded and rejected her claim.
But then Giles-Jones’ lawyers learned that a witness who testified at the trial said that one of the jurors had contacted her through Facebook Messenger, evidently via his cell phone from the jury room minutes after she left the stand, and asked her for a date, the Court of Appeals ruling says. Giles-Jones’ lawyers asked for a new trial.
Jurors are not supposed to contact witnesses during a trial because such contact could bias the jury and taint the verdict. Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks had told the jurors not to have any contact with witnesses and to keep their cell phones turned off in the jury room.
“Again, if you violate these rules, it could be contempt and subject you to punishment,” Hicks told them, according to a trial transcript quoted in the Court of Appeals ruling.
Hicks investigated the matter. At a hearing in July 2024, the witness told Hicks that when she received the message, she told the juror she was uninterested in dating, the ruling says. She said she ended the conversation and deleted it because she knew it was improper for her to communicate with a juror during the trial. She said none of that day’s conversation was about the trial.
The witness resumed DMing with the juror after the trial ended, when it was no longer improper, she said. She shared those messages at the hearing.
The juror did not testify at the hearing because the Sheriff’s Office was unable to find him to give him a subpoena to summon him to court.
Hicks in August 2024 ordered a new trial due to the juror’s misconduct. The Robinsons appealed.
Court Of Appeals Rejects New Trial
The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Nov. 5 overturned Hicks’ order.
“We discern no evidence in the Record of Plaintiff establishing that the brief communication between a witness and a juror prejudiced the trial,” wrote Court of Appeals Judge Julee Flood in the majority opinion. She said Hicks had abused his judicial discretion when he granted the trial.
Judge Jeffery Carpenter agreed.
Judge Allegra Collins dissented. There is no evidence that Hicks abused his discretion, she said, so his order should stand.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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