My guess is that it will be a hung jury.

I believe that there is at least one or two jurors who will not be able to get beyond the reasonable doubt planted in their minds by the faulty notes, faulty memories and changed testimonies of multiple prosecution witnesses.

Yeah, these two:

This juror worked as an administrative assistant at the White House during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. She holds two master’s degrees, and said she has friends who work at the U.S. Park Police, the Secret Service and the CIA.

This juror worked at The Washington Post, and said he has a friend who played over-40 football with Libby. He knows Walter Pincus, the national security reporter for the Post.

I believe that there is at least one or two jurors who will not be able to get beyond the reasonable doubt planted in their minds by the faulty notes, faulty memories and changed testimonies of multiple prosecution witnesses.

Cozumel @ 76

annx @ 69

WP has a story up ….

linktoWP

“According to court house sources, the woman sought information over the weekend, and realized this morning that it was inappropriate to do so.”

Idiot

Hardly. She went looking for information, despite being told repeatedly that she should be avoiding it. I don’t think the Met would hire someone who’s that brain-dead. She’s either demented, or she did it on purpose. Either way, she’s not someone you want on a jury. I don’t think a simple dismissal was appropriate, though. I think she should have been dismissed, and then Walton should have ordered her to sit in the corner off the courtroom until the rest of the jury came back with a verdict.

love this comment. Sit in the corner facing the wall and with a dunce hat on.

LoudounLib @
3

Fitz!!

I find it hard to believe that after a month’s trial, and probable daily admonishments from the judge, this juror let herself be exposed to media reports. I suspect she was tired of being the outsider in the jury deliberations and intentionally exposed herself to the media reports so she could get out of further deliberations. Also, she would have had to self report the exposure to the Court. I look for a quick verdict after she is gone.

Totally agree. This juror must have wanted to be off the jury. Otherwise why would she report this? I hope somehow, someday, someone can explain how this juror exposed herself to media coverage. How is it possible she misunderstood Walton??? Very strange.

Anyone out there who has tried a case or been a party in a case, can tell you that it is a grueling ordeal, no matter how strong a person you are and no matter what kind of attorney you are. In fact, the better attorneys I know go through a worse ordeal during trial than the ones who simply just slap stuff together and argue from the hip to a jury. There is a very good explanation for this. The better attorneys work harder in prep and during trial and actually care more about the case. I can only imagine what Fitz and team have gone through from the grand jury phase to now.

I am very confident that in the event of retrial, Fitz would put on a great case again. However, a retrial, in my opinion, is like a copy of an original document. It is fuzzier and less clear than the original document. In addition, I would hate to see Fitz have to go through the terrible ordeal of having to pick a jury again, put on the evidence again, and give Wells a chance to correct his mistakes the first time around. I think everyone will agree that Wells, after seeing Fitz hand, can only do better the second time around. Hell, he only has one way to go, up. He will know Fitz’s questions, his arguments, etc.

I hope a retrial does not occur, but if it appears for any reason that the jury will not finish deliberating by this Friday, I would hope that Walton sequesters the jury. This is extreme, but look at what happened already in one weekend. One juror was tainted and got kicked.

C’mon verdict!!!

Fwiw, the NYT has this:

Judge Walton said the problem juror’s exposure to outside information was the result of a misunderstanding rather than intentional on her part. But he said he had no choice but to dismiss her.

WaPo has this:

He (Walton) did not say what the juror had seen but characterized it as a misunderstanding.

Bloomberg:

The female juror came in contact with information about the case by accident, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said after discussing the situation with her, the jury foreperson and lawyers. The judge ruled that the juror, an art historian, couldn’t remain on the panel.

“She did have contact with information related to this case,” Walton said in court in Washington today. “It wasn’t intentional on her part, it was a misunderstanding of what I had been telling her throughout the trial.”
…
Walton said other jurors weren’t tainted by the information learned by the dismissed juror, which he didn’t describe. To avoid the potential for a mistrial, he has instructed the jury throughout the trial not to view or listen to any news or other reports about the case.

Fox:

After Walton agreed to dismiss the juror and continue with the 11-member jury, he instructed the remaining members to continue to avoid media contact.

“Let me just ask, before you go back, whether any of you have kept yourself isolated from any outside information in this case,” Walton asked.

When Walton asked for a show of hands, all the jurors raised their hands. He then said that he meant they should only raise their hands if they’d been exposed to outside information. The group laughed and they all put their hands down.

The judge then asked them to proceed with their deliberations.

Is this sorta like instant voir dire?
Helps speed things up, dontcha think?
Bob in HI

In what I’d call Fitz’ previous most high-profile case, Governor Ryan of Illinois was convicted on several counts by a jury of 10. The alternates had already been used when the jury went into deliberation, and then 2 of the jurors were found to have made serious misrepresentations on their jury questionaires or in jury-qualification testimony.

The defense is appealing for a mistrial because of how it happened.

Fitz may be feeling particularly sensitive to the possibility of a mistrial due to loss of jurors here. He’d rather have a full set against the possibility that someone else is struck after deliberations begin, as in the Illinois case.

I know, I know. It isn’t actually possible. But I have jury duty that day and god it would be fun to be part of.