diff --git a/plugins/jasperreports/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/views/jasperreports/JasperReportsResult.java b/plugins/jasperreports/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/views/jasperreports/JasperReportsResult.java
index 921a010c0..e0ea121f6 100644
--- a/plugins/jasperreports/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/views/jasperreports/JasperReportsResult.java
+++ b/plugins/jasperreports/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/views/jasperreports/JasperReportsResult.java
@@ -386,7 +386,11 @@ public class JasperReportsResult extends StrutsResultSupport implements JasperRe
             LOG.error("Error producing {} report for uri {}", format, systemId, e);
             throw new ServletException(e.getMessage(), e);
         } finally {
-            conn.close();
+            try {
+                conn.close();
+            } catch (Exception e) {
+                LOG.warn("Could not close db connection properly", e);
+            }
         }
 
         response.setContentLength(output.size());
diff --git a/plugins/json/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/json/JSONResult.java b/plugins/json/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/json/JSONResult.java
index 3475be00c..5f14a8d9c 100644
--- a/plugins/json/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/json/JSONResult.java
+++ b/plugins/json/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/json/JSONResult.java
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ public class JSONResult implements Result {
     public static final String DEFAULT_PARAM = null;
 
     private String encoding;
-    private String defaultEncoding = "ISO-8859-1";
+    private String defaultEncoding = "UTF-8";
     private List<Pattern> includeProperties;
     private List<Pattern> excludeProperties;
     private String root;