It looks likely that there is at least one juror in the Paul Manafort trial who is annoying their peers. It’s never a good sign when the jury asks the judge to provide a definition of reasonable doubt. Of course, the judge explained that the government doesn’t have to remove any possible doubt, so that likely gave the other jurors the ammunition they were looking for.
Likewise, the judge answered their question on tax law by explaining that, yes, Paul Manafort had to fill out a FBAR form, so that shot down another possible objection to convicting him.
Still, there seems to be a holdout so a mistrial is a real possibility.
Hopefully it is nothing, but it sounds like a possible repeat of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge trial.
I think I read that the juror’s questions pertained to a subset of the charges pending against Manafort.
So maybe there won’t be convictions on everything, just a portion of it.
There’s no point in trying to read this. Juries are inherently unpredictable.
Wasn’t he the US Attorney for the SD of VA?
Asking about reasonable doubt is common. It is kinda of a deliberately nebulous concept that a lot of jurors have trouble with. I wouldn’t read too much into it at this point.
On TRMS last night, Chuck Rosenburg, who was a U.S. Attorney during the Bush administration, and one of the better legal experts she has on in my opinion, said that as far as he could remember, all the juries who asked about reasonable doubt in his trials ended up convicting.
I’ve been on 5 juries in the past 30 years. 3 criminal and 2 civil. In only one case was the defendant charged with only one count … she was guilty as hell. In all the other cases, “consensus” was reached by essentially trading one count against another.
Manafort has 12 counts lodged against him. No way will all 12 come home if there are any holdouts at all. Which of the 12 come home depends on WHY the holdout(s) are for acquittal.
3-9. Failure to report Foreign Accounts. These charges are a matter of fact, not an assumption of what was thought. They probably will not be traded away. These charges will probably be the ones that someone would agree to convict on if some other charge were dropt. However, remember that juries are often unreasonable, illogical and inconsistent.
10-12. Unregistered foreign agent, making false statements about being/not being one. Kinda depends on your definition of “agent”. Trust me, jurors are quite capable of coming up with their own definition of agent. These are trade bait.
Now as to how good or bad the predictions are? Damifino. We got a bunch of lawyers on this site, what do THEY think?
DerFarm, i think you are working from the October 2017 indictment in the District of Columbia. The charges being tried in this case are from the superseding indictment filed in the N.D. Va. in February 2018. That indictment contained 32 counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to report foreign bank accounts. The money laundering charges will be tried in the DC case.
I am curious to know whether what happened during the time the trial was put on hold while, it would appear, some problems with the jury were being investigated. It would be horrific if there was jury tampering, with the purpose of inducing a juror to hold out. It doesn’t appear that any of the jurors were dismissed, so I guess the judge was satisfied, but I can’t help wondering.
The jury has over 300 exhibits to read, but from the questions they asked, it seems that they are past the stage of just reading and thinking about the charges and well into considering whether the government proved specific counts.
You’re probably right, but the essence of my analysis stands: Juries horse trade when the cases are not open and shut, or there are obstreporous holdouts (I know I was one).
First, if this is a 32-count indictment, why is Manafort only being tried on 18 counts?
Second, I would not guess at what stage of deliberations they’re in. They haven’t been deliberating long enough to be in the weeds of the facts, IMHO. It’s 18 separate counts.
I think this is a direct result of the judge refusing to send the instructions back with the jury. That was an error of huge proportions. And a massive gift to the defense, because now the jury may be so lost it acquits out of ignorance and confusion.
I also think most, probably all, federal judges agree, if you catch them after their second Scotch. Ellis is an embarrassment.
I generally concur. As a prosecutor I often saw jurors give the defense a bone by acquitting on a charge where there really was no doubt as to guilt. While convicting on everything else.
Defense attorneys often see the reverse – conviction on one piddling count while the majors get kicked. (I have been more fortunate in most of my trials as a defense attorney, though it happened a couple of times. It pissed off my clients, and the prosecutor had no illusions as to just how badly he’d done.)
I hope this trial is not a replay of the Julie Hiatt Steele trial, though. There the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for acquittal. It came out that one of the jurors (the “holdout”) was a Freeper and RWNJ who was posting nightly during the trial to the Clinton Crazies. The jury was going to be hung from the start, a total waste of time. Fortunately for Steele, Starr realized a retrial would probably lead to total acquittal, and he dropped the case. Though it cost Steele a fortune, and her house. And this was in the same courthouse Manafort is in now, the so-called “rocket docket.” Little justice can ever be done in a court called the “rocket docket.”
One will often hear the phrase “compromise verdict” around the criminal courts, and I fear we are either heading there, or for a mistrial.
I think it’s unlikely Manafort walks. But this is federal. In every jury trial I’ve ever done (state level), the jury was given a copy of the instructions to use in deliberation. Judge Ellis refused to do that here, and I believe it’s error. If this is a “not guilty,” look no further than this joke of a judge for blame. He is the poster child for the abolition of lifetime appointment of federal judges. Jurors take cues from the judge, not the lawyers, whom they inherently distrust. And they will surely note when a judge is biased for the defense, as it’s clear is happening here. I even know of one state level case where the acquittal was reversed. The reviewing court said there was no violation of double jeopardy to retry the defendant, because he clearly had never been in actual jeopardy in the original trial.
Judges will often not provide written instructions in NY state court trials, from my experience. I think that that is a disservice to the jury, particularly in complex cases with multiple counts, but it is not an unprecedented phenomenon.
Right-wing authoritarians make up roughly 30% of the population.
Assuming that it translates to the jury, that’s 4 who could potentially nullify the law. Which is what right-wing authoritarians are itching to do anyway.
So, I wouldn’t assume he’s going to be convicted of anything until it actually happens, regardless of the facts and any reasonable doubt.