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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Byron York: The Problem Is Not the Jury. It's the Case |
| 2007-03-06 |
| Quick update from NRO The Corner: We now know the three questions the jury sent to the judge yesterday. This is a verbatim typed version of the foreman's handwritten note: All three questions below relate to Count 3 (pages 74 & 75) This is the part of the jury instructions — pages 74-75 — that is hanging up the jury: Count three of the indictment alleges that Mr. Libby falsely told the FBI on October 14 or November 16, 2003, that during a conversation with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine on July 12, 2003, Mr. Libby told Mr. Cooper that reporters were telling the administration that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, but that Mr. Libby did not know if this was true. It's easy to criticize the jury — they can seem easily confused — but the problem here is not the jury. It is the charge. This is the entirety of Count 3 (and Count 5, as well): Libby testified that he told Cooper that reporters were telling him, Libby, that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, but that he, Libby, did not know if it was true. Cooper testified that Libby did not say that. There are no notes, no recordings, no records, no nothing to support either man's story. Just Libby's testimony versus Cooper's testimony. And prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asked the jury to convict Libby of a felony, one that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, on that astonishingly flimsy allegation. No wonder the jury is confused. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 Having been on a jury once (cut-and-dried case of drug trafficking), if I had had this much trouble understanding what the charges even were I would NEVER have voted guilty. From what I've seen, I think the jurors were remiss here too. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2007-03-06 17:21 |
| #5 lots of grounds for appeal here: prosecutorial misconduct judicial error |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-03-06 14:07 |
| #4 From Mark Levin at The Corner, watching a Fox interview of one of the jurist: "Fair" Trial [Mark R. Levin] The former journalist-juror also said he and his colleagues wanted to know "where's Rove?" And then... Dreaming [Mark R. Levin] As I think about it, "where's Rove" tells me that the jurors wanted to convict others at the White House who hadn't been charged. It turns out this jury was a prosecutor's dream. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2007-03-06 13:35 |
| #3 Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. |
| Posted by: Steve 2007-03-06 12:04 |
| #2 Jurors reach verdict in CIA leak case They read it at noon. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-03-06 11:42 |
| #1 From Drudge: “Some jury room confusion about what exactly former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is accused of doing.” Amen exactly what is the crime here? Since Super Secret CIA Agent was secret what exactly what crime was Libby attempting to cover up when he gave testimony, and if there was no crime to cover up, why would someone lie? Seems to me that Fitz hit the ground running, ran right over the truth, and never noticed. Or maybe he noticed and didn’t care because I (for one) was put off by his pre-trial comments when he knew for certain that the original crime for which he was pursuing never happened. It is as if he HAD to make something out of nothing. Never should have gone to trial. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2007-03-06 11:34 |