The jury has reached a verdict. I’ll post an update as soon as announced, and will try to find a live feed to embed.
Per Fox News, unanimous verdict on one count (Count III, illegal campaign contributions from Bunny Mellon), hung jury on other counts. Jury sent back for more deliberation.
Report: Jury has reached unanimous verdict on ONE count only – judge sent them back for more deliberations #Edwards
— MyFOX8 FOX8 WGHP (@myfox8) May 31, 2012
Defense wants mistrial declared, prosecution wants more deliberation. Judge is taking 5 minutes to ponder. #CNN covering live. #Edwards
— Megan Grant (@MeganGrantCNN) May 31, 2012
Judge tells John #Edwards jurors to keep deliberating after they reach verdict on 1 of 6 counts. ow.ly/bhl9v
— FOX Charlotte (@FOXCharlotte) May 31, 2012
ALERT: John #Edwards not guilt on count 3, jury deadlocked on other counts. Switch to News 14, news14.com #ncpol
— news14charlotte (@news14charlotte) May 31, 2012
#Edwards trial: Edwards found NOT guilty on one count, mistrial on 5 other counts. #BREAKING
— NBC Nightly News(@nbcnightlynews) May 31, 2012
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Comments
I stood for that a$$hole at the Iowa Dem caucus in 2008. (Even then, it was ABO for me.) Seeing him led away in handcuffs would take some of the sting out of that.
Was the verdict on the one charge decided “Guilty” or “Not guilty”?
Has anyone noticed that John Edwards has high cheeckbones? How will that play with the Judge at sentencing?
Those motions are pro forma. You have to get them on the record for appellate purposes.
The judge is not about to even let the jury off with a “hung” (Rush called them a “well-hung”) jury result.
He will keep them as long as there’s ANY chance they will make a clear decision.
http://www.openmarket.org/2012/05/31/lawyer-arrested-for-constitutionally-protected-blogging-against-convicted-bomber-after-hearing-before-judge-c-j-vaughey/
Not toooooo off topic…
A Walker up-date. As I noted, everybody BUT Walker needs to be in pucker-mode.
So Jeffrey Toobin says “This is not how a trial is supposed to end … I assure you that the legal term for this is ‘a mess.’ Juries are supposed to resolve an entire case.” I’m under the impression that juries are supposed to play the hand they’ve been dealt. Perhaps inability to come to a verdict on some of the counts means there wasn’t a case to begin with.
Toobin is batting 000 these days.
Where there is no case, jurors have no difficulty. This kind of cat-herding comes where you have a real controversy.
Actually, if there really is no case, a jury will never get the case. The judge will decide the matter.
Soooo…
now the prosecutors have to decide whether to reload or let it go.
I’m guessing they’ll let it go. Sounds like there wasn’t much support for a “guilty” verdict on any of the charges. Any prosecutor would think twice before going down that road again.
They’d just get accused of persecuting the poor man.
The lady with the scales must be hanging her head in shame.
Dunno. We’ll see.
But there is this, at the end of the day. The lady with the scales is blind, and it is because of what she’s seen, IMNHO.
The law is a clumsy hammer…never a scalpel. John Edwards is a skunk. But that isn’t a criminal offense. The criminal code is clunky, especially WRT esoteric stuff like that involved here. Sometimes jurors just really do see stuff you and I won’t see.
I’ve had absolutely gonzo verdicts a few times. But…WAY far away…I believe in juries, just like I believe in self-government.
Okay. Scratch that line about the lady with the scales.
Note to self: Spend more time at LI. Wisdom lives here.
If they found him not guilty on count three – which was soliciting/accepting money from Mrs. Mellon in excess of the federal limit, which they surely did (and would normally be handled civilly by the FEC in five or six years) – there is no freaking way they are going to convict him on the rest.
They should have charged him with being a low-life scum of the earth, it wouldn’t have taken the jury 20 minutes on that one.
[…] don’t care what the jury decided, he’s still a douche. Professor Jacobson has more. I guess this frees him up to run for office again, […]
Wow so I see the refs from last night’s Celtics- Heat game were doubling as jurrors in this case.
Despite the colossal waste of taxpayer’s time and resources, at least one useful thing came out of this mess.
The video of John Edward’s after verdict speech can be used for generations to come when it becomes medically necessary to induce vomiting.
The question isn’t whether John Edwards is reprehensible, but whether he broke the law. Based on my understanding of the case, I’d vote to acquit. My guess is the jury has trouble with the prosecution cramming the square peg of paying off a mistress into the round hole of a campaign contribution.
Our legal system is hopelessly broken. I have no faith in it, and I doubt I’m speaking only for myself.
I take the opposite view. If you know much history, you would agree, I think.
Our LEGAL system is made of humans. Actually, we do pretty well.
The child is the only innocent person in this whole affair. I hope Edwards as at least enough decency to provide this child with everything she needs.
Wierd.
FEC rules, Federal statutes, guidelines, and other such governing authorities…
Thousands of pages….even without McCain-Feingold….but toss that in the heap…
Designed to clarify and define the law…
But, you can never properly adjudicate the law…
Because you can never “knowingly” break the law..
Which is the Mother of All Laws…sayeth the politicians.
Can’t wait to hear the cries for more “campaign finance reform”….
Odds on how long that will take?
Well, looks like telling part of the truth didn’t quite work for Edwards. When they re-try him on the five charges the jury hung on, he really ought to make his lawyers try telling the truth. “The money came from guys who had previously donated campaign money. They’re my buds. So, when this .. ah .. problem with some woman came up, I asked them to help me pay her off and they did.” Wrong? Yeah, you betcha. Criminal? No, because the dollars never went into the campaign’s treasury bank account, it went from his buddies to Edwards (or one of his flunkies) to the bimbo. Bang!
True, it sounds more like a Requested Bribe than a Campaign Contribution. “You pay Bubbles a couple hundred K to keep Junior under wraps for a few years, and I’ll do some nice things for you under the table. And nobody has to keep track of the money, right?”
He must have been absolutely panicked to set himself up for prospective blackmail like this.
i think his behavior is extreme weasel stuff . His 30 year old daughter is 30 & looks 50.
It is all too sad . Many lives have been wrecked.