Former Terry Sanford High School basketball player Miya Giles-Jones will get another chance to persuade a jury that former coach Thurston Jackie Robinson sexually assaulted her and should pay her $2.5 million.
Giles-Jones first lost her lawsuit against Robinson at a trial in May.
Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks on Monday granted Giles-Jones a new trial based on evidence that emerged after the verdict that one of the jurors contacted a witness during the trial to solicit a date. To ensure that trials are fair and unbiased, jurors are not allowed to have contact with witnesses while the trials are ongoing. During trials, judges routinely remind jurors to have no contact.
The new trial for the lawsuit is scheduled for Nov. 13, said Giles-Jones’ lawyer, Michael Porter. Efforts to reach Robinson’s lawyer in the civil lawsuit, Jared Hammett, by email and telephone were unsuccessful.
“You don’t know how his bias — the juror in question — influenced the entirety of the deliberations,” Porter told CityView on Tuesday. “You’re entitled to 12 unbiased jurors, who then can deliberate. So who knows how it would have turned out differently?”
Separate from this civil lawsuit, Robinson has criminal charges pending that accuse him of inappropriate sexual contact with Giles-Jones and two other former players. The charges include allegations of inappropriate touching and indecent exposure.
Robinson was arrested in January 2023 and has been free on bail. A hearing on whether Robinson has violated the terms of his bail has been postponed three times since June.
Giles-Jones filed her civil lawsuit against Robinson in January 2023, shortly before Robinson was arrested.
At the trial in May, Giles-Jones told the jury that Robinson inappropriately touched her numerous times over a period of years, and that he had exposed himself to her. Robinson testified, too, and insisted he never touched Giles-Jones or the other girls in a sexual manner or exposed himself to them.
Robinson has 30 days to notify the court if he plans to appeal Hicks’ decision, Porter said.
“Maya is thrilled that she will have another chance at a completely unbiased jury,” he said. “She’s disappointed that the defendant reneged on the settlement agreement that we had reached in principle.”
While the parties waited for Hicks to decide whether to order a new trial, Porter said, they negotiated to try to settle the case. “We had reached a monetary amount, and agreed on almost all terms. But the defendant refused to sign the settlement agreement,” he said.
Porter would not say how much money would have been paid to Giles-Jones in the proposed settlement.
“Thurston Robinson’s ‘great victory’ that he proclaimed so loudly has now been overturned, because it was based upon jury misconduct,” Porter said. “Now Miya once again gets to seek justice for Thurston Robinson’s many wrongs.”
Since graduating from Terry Sanford in 2023, Giles-Jones enrolled in Fordham University in New York and is on the women’s basketball team. She was red-shirted her freshman year — she did not play — due to injury, the team’s website says.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
