Manafort juror says 'one holdout' kept jury from convicting on all counts

[babylonsister]

August 22, 2018 / 11:53 PM / Updated 6 hours ago
Manafort juror says 'one holdout' kept jury from convicting on all counts
Reuters Staff


(Reuters) - The jury in the trial of Paul Manafort would have convicted the former Trump campaign chairman on all 18 criminal charges if not for one juror who had questions about the reasonable doubt standard of guilt, a juror told Fox News on Wednesday.

“There was one holdout,” the juror in the trial, Paula Duncan, said in an interview.

“We all tried to convince her to look at the paper trail. We laid it out in front of her again and again and she still said that she had a reasonable doubt.”

The jury on Tuesday found Manafort guilty on two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one charge of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts, giving Special Counsel Robert Mueller a victory in the first trial arising from his investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election.

But the jury of six men and six women could not reach a consensus on 10 other counts. Judge T.S. Ellis, who oversaw the three-week trial in a U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, declared a mistrial on those 10 counts.

In the first public comments by a juror in the case, Duncan said that 11 members of the jury were in agreement that Manafort was guilty on all 18 felony charges but that they could not get the one holdout to change her mind after nearly four days of deliberations.

“We didn’t want it to be hung so we tried for an extended period of time to convince her. But in the end she held out and that’s why we have 10 counts that did not get a verdict,” she said.

more...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort-juror/manafort-juror-says-one-holdout-kept-jury-from-convicting-on-all-counts-idUSKCN1L80AA?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5b7e453204d30167fbf5adb0&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

[honest.abe]

1. Not surprised at this.

Last edited Thu Aug 23, 2018, 08:21 AM - Edit history (1)

Thats all it takes is one bad juror. Which is why the Mueller team had so many counts to get better odds of getting some guilty convictions.

[Sherman A1]

6. I would not be too quick to criticize the juror or jury

He was convicted on 8 counts and if I was not convinced of the information presented to me I too would not have voted to convict. Jury service is not particularly easy or enjoyable. I believe that this group did not only their service to the community, but a service to us all and the judicial system. Would I have preferred to see an across the board conviction, certainly, but I was not in the room or sat on the panel.

[honest.abe]

11. Not criticizing the jury at all.. just that one particular juror.

Based on this..

"We all tried to convince her to look at the paper trail. We laid it out in front of her again and again and she still said that she had a reasonable doubt.”

[Sherman A1]

12. The juror had a reasonable doubt

if she indeed did have such a reasonable doubt then she did what she believed to be best and I believe to be the right thing. That is how it is supposed to work. As any human construct the jury system is an imperfect one, I can only accept that given the information available to her at the time she did what she thought best as any of us would hopefully do.

[honest.abe]

14. Well if 11 people agreed the evidence was clear and she was only one with doubts..

then I suspect she was mistaken and was motivated by other issues besides reasonable doubt.

[Sherman A1]

16. Perhaps you are right

and perhaps not, but neither of us being in the room or in the shoes of that juror will really ever know. I can only believe that they all did the best they could given the information available to them at the time.

[honest.abe]

19. Perhaps..

but a juror can have bias... they are human.

[MaryMagdaline]

22. One of the legal commentators on MSNBC said that jury hung on the counts

involving Gates. The commentator (one of the best I saw on Tuesday night) had the most intelligent things to say and then they cut to the reporter who has been at everything, but frankly, is pretty dull and only states the obvious. Anyway, the legal commentator said she thought the jury(ors) had a problem with the fact that Gates was walking and that the feds might want to reconsider how they sell their case to the jury on the retrial.

Would have like more analysis on this point.

[joshcryer]

50. That is fascinating.

If that juror was intentionally hanging the jury on those charges so a better case could be made for it.

[RedSpartan]

43. Reasonable doubt is supposed to be an objective standard, not subjective.

It seems that it is very difficult to get jurors to understand that.

[honest.abe]

48. Yes, and I suppose that is why the jury requested the judge to define "reasonable doubt".

But even with the explanation it seems that juror didn't get it.

[trixie2]

55. You have never had jury duty have you?

If you did you would know what it feels like and how seriously most jurors are.

[honest.abe]

58. I have. Yes, most are serious. Some are biased.

That's reality.

[Ferrets are Cool]

21. "she did what she believed to be best and the right thing"

The SAME FUCKING REASONING they use for voting for and supporting the fucking chit stain tRump.

[Sherman A1]

23. I suspect that we will simply

have to agree to disagree.

Neither of us were in the jury room so we really don't know.

As to who people choose to vote for or against, it is up to the candidates for any office to make their case and it is up to the individual voter to accept or reject that case.

[MaryMagdaline]

52. Agree

I think Manafort is a mass murderer and has absolutely no redeeming qualities. He is not even good to his family. Nevertheless, if I thought the evidence did not amount to a guilty verdict on a specific charge, I would not convict. The juror who is so pro-Trump knew she was hurting her guy (Trump) but did not ignore the evidence. Good for her.

Having said that, and her jury service being over with, I can now say that she has returned to being a worthless Trumpster.

[dem4decades]

2. Imagine that, a Trump supporter wasn't reasonable.

[DeminPennswoods]

3. I wouldn't jump to that conclusion

TBH, the bank fraud conspiracy charges were probably the weakest part of the gov't's case. The loan from FSB was egregious, but the fraud seemed more on Calk's part than Manafort's. If it's possible, Calk's actions were worse than Manafort's.

The failure to report foreign bank accounts was puzzling, but the defense atty raised a question about less than 50% ownership. Dan Goldman talked about that in one of his MSNBC appearances and said it was an easy answer because Manafort's wife owned the balance and they filed a joint tax return, so the accounts had to be reported regardless. The prosecutors, apparently, didn't point that out to the jury nor, apparently, did any juror think of that argument.

Then there's this from the article.

Duncan said she was a Trump supporter and wanted to believe that Manafort was innocent. She noted that even his critics had described him as a brilliant political consultant and that Trump had trusted him with overseeing his campaign.

“I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty. But he was and no one is above the law.”

[kentuck]

4. "I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty. But he was and no one is above the law."

Except one.

[DeminPennswoods]

7. That comment struck me as very bad news for the GOP

since it came from an admitted Trump supporter.

[Miles Archer]

9. Well, that plus one other minor detail...

....this case had 400+ pieces of evidence, and the upcoming trial has 1000+.

Paulie may have dodged 300+ years in sentencing with the current trial, but he's not out of the woods yet.

There's also a piece on Politico (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-scandals-midterm-elections-794072) in which GOP Strategists are fretting over the fact that "Soccer Moms" are getting sick of the Trump sideshow. So it still comes down to the Blue Wave in November. That's when the bad news will get really bad.

Trump and his entire family are in the crosshairs with the "Trump Foundation" investigations.

Cohen is giving every indication that he's singing like a little birdie.

Bad news everywhere.

Oh well.

[kentuck]

26. Only if they were contacted by someone from the Manafort or Trump camp before the jury....

...or if they heard the comments about Manafort that were made by Trump during the trial, where he called him a "good man" and how sad it was what they were doing to our country...

(response to self-deleted post below)

[Lee-Lee]

5. Most hung juries are one or two holdouts

That’s not unusual at all.

A good friend of mine was on a civil jury for a malpractice case where they had a guy who was like that. Everyone else was in total agreement that the defendant, the doctor, wasn’t negligent because the patient had ignored the doctors instructions and did things like kept smoking, refused to attend any physical therapy ordered, refused to change diet or exercise, only went to one follow up appointment instead of the twice monthly ones needed, etc.

But the one juror had a chip on his shoulder about doctors. He kept insisting the doctor needed to be “told” that he needed to be better and given a “punishment”. He couldn’t exactly say why. That juror took no notes, would reference testimony that he was sure he heard that never happened, didn’t care what the experts said because “they were other doctors who just cover for each other”, etc. eventually they had to come to a compromise with that one lone juror and they found the doctor negligent on only one of the counts, awarded the damages but then the jury reduced the liability for damages based on the plaintiffs own actions and took the damages awarded down to $1.

Because it was that or a mistrial after a 6 week trial. Because one guy was a holdout and by all accounts he was never going to change his mind no matter what the facts.

All it takes is one person on that jury who has had bad experiences with banks, the IRS or anyone else involved for them to have a jaded mindset that will lead them to see things very differently.

[spooky3]

33. Interesting how some people can't seem to put their

Revenge motives aside.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

45. That's a common personality trait among conservatives.

I read an interesting study about the personality comparisons between liberals and conservatives. I don’t have the link, but it could probably be found with the googlator.

[Lee-Lee]

46. Everyone's worldview comes from their lived experiences

If you had a case that involved racial discrimination or a use of force by a white cop against a black citizen you might find the same thing if one juror had been the victim of discrimination of a similar nature in the past.

At the same time if one person felt they had been unfairly accused of racial bias they may hold out another way.

[spooky3]

51. It's true, but people vary in their abilities to set aside biases.

That's one of the reasons why the attorneys try, during voir dire, to figure out who these people are, or who might have had experiences that are very hard to put aside.

[kentuck]

8. This scenario was easy to imagine.

Considering the divided condition in this country. Trump has played these divisions masterfully.

[GusBob]

17. Somebody gets it here

This is the pathology that is Trumpism. If you or I had defrauded banks, we would be in jail. Millionaires get away with the crimes they commit

[GWC58]

30. IOKIYAAR! 🤫

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. The jury vote was 206 to 10.

8 x 12 + 10 x 11 = 206

Holdout voted no on 10 counts.

206 out of 216 is a fine score for prosecution. They should try again on the ten counts, perhaps after dust has settled (potential pardons, exits, etc.).

[maryellen99]

13. Bet that interviewed juror is going to vote for trump again in 2020 nt

[Mc Mike]

18. Not Paula Duncan, you mean the lady she talked about? Nt

[maryellen99]

24. Yes I meant Paula Duncan nt

[Mc Mike]

29. Her and the other 10 wanted to convict tRump's campaign manager. Nt

[spooky3]

34. Yes, but did you see the clip? She still is a Trump

supporter. But she did the right thing as a juror.

[Mc Mike]

36. I see. Don't have access to the vid. Maybe Paula is one of tRump's hardcore. Thanks, Nt

[spooky3]

37. It's in another thread here at DU. Here it is:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=11037307

[Mc Mike]

38. Thanks, spooky. Nt

[jayschool2013]

15. Here's video

[Loubee]

25. I suspect the defense knew about this juror

and, based on their demeanor during deliberations, were counting on her to hang the proceedings.

[orangecrush]

27. IIRC

Therre was an issue brought up by the prosecution concerning one of the jurors.


https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/-juror-issue-a-possible-explanation-for-manafort-trial-delays-1296953923660

[blueinredohio]

28. I said all along it would be hard to get an impartial jury.

It was too widely publicized and most people either thought he was guilty or not.

[NoMoreRepugs]

31. To have 12 individuals capable of putting their individual biases aside

and understand voluminous hardcopy evidence and believe the testimony of a cooperative witness himself guilty of crimes in divided America is, when I think about, not something easily achieved.

[randr]

32. The problem with the judicial use of "reasonable doubt" is that

reason left town a while back. Along with truth it was last seen heading into the sunset.

[lunatica]

42. That's scary as hell!

And true.

[Kaleva]

35. Looks like the odds of convicting Manafort on the 10 counts in a retrial are good.

If it was just one juror who held out on all ten counts.

[DeminPennswoods]

44. Doubt he'll be retried

Prosecutors got convictions on every group of charges except the bank fraud conspiracy. They really don't need convictions on the other 10 charges to get the kind of sentence for Manafort they want.

[Kaleva]

47. Yes, as he's going to prison for 8 counts, the Feds probably won't bother retrying him.

[DeminPennswoods]

56. But, if need be, they still have a retrial in their hip pocket

It's something they can let Manafort know. They were only 1 recalcitrant juror away from a clean sweep. I'm sure the prosecutors learned something from what the jury said post-trial and won't make the same mistakes again should they decide to re-try the 10 other charges.

[DrDan]

39. watch for her on the list of White House new-hires . . .

[heaven05]

40. one of his deplorables

no doubt...

[Honeycombe8]

41. An uber conservative or Trumper, no doubt. Woo hoo! If they retry, they will probably get a guilty

verdict on those remaining charges.

But they probably won't retry, since he's guilty on the other 8 and has another trial in NY.

[triron]

49. Wonder if that single juror originally held out on all 18 counts

but was pressured by others to change verdict on the 8 counts.

[Honeycombe8]

54. That would be good to know. I would guess not, though.

Someone who is that determined on 10 counts...the evidence was probably so strong (as in "do you recognize that this table we're sitting at exists?&quot that s/he couldn't deny it.

Looks like we may find out the nitty gritty in time.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

53. No way. Couldn't be true. -45 said it was due to weak case

[Vinca]

57. That should give prosecutors confidence to bring the 10 charges back again if they decide

that's the best thing to do. I guess it all hinges on Dear Leader and his pardon power. If Manafort is going to get a pardon on everything anyway (a very dumb move by Trump), it would be a waste of money to bring the 10 charges again. Wonder how many charges are waiting in the wings at the state level just in case.