Posted on 03/02/2007 7:34:25 AM PST by SmithL
Jurors in the perjury trial of ex-White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby returned to work Friday with no verdict immediately in sight.
The seven women and four men have been deliberating for more than a week but have indicated they still have plenty of work to do. They recently asked for more office supplies and asked the judge to let them go home early Friday for the weekend.
"So I assume they will not have a verdict tomorrow either," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton told lawyers Thursday as jurors finished their seventh day of deliberations.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Walton said he would let jurors break for the weekend at 2 p.m.
Jurors have offered few clues about their progress. They've asked only one substantive question — involving Libby's discussions with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper — but apparently resolved it themselves before the judge could answer.
Libby faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of all five charges. He would likely get far less time under federal sentencing guidelines.
Still no Fitzmas?
The jurors are as confused as everybody else. The only people convinced Libby is guilty are the Bush haters, and they didn't need a trial to come to that conclusion.
The catering must be kick a$$
I think they are all updating their resumes, working on book deals and deciding who will play them in the film version of this clown circus.
I am afraid that these long deliberations are nothing but a game by the jury to say “we took all the time but at the end we found Libby guilty”. What is the probability that a jury in D.C is going to be fair for a person associated with the Bush administration? Very little chance. I hope that I am wrong and the jury will rightly find Libby not guilty because there is no damn crime in this mockery and travesty case and trial.
I wonder what the numbers are right now?
Are a majority of the jurors voting for conviction - with only a few holdouts?
Or are a majority of jurors voting for acquittal - with only a few holdouts?
I can't possibly imagine reading a book or seeing a movie about this trial.
It would be sleep-inducing.
That's exactly what I think.
If their need for all that stationery means they are busy trying to plot out who said what to whom and when, they are looking for their rationale to convict. This way when the trial is over and the media asks them why they convicted, they can come back with what sounds like a thoughtful answer. Barf!
Agree 100%.
I don't think that's the problem. I think they are going to convict, and are trying to get their stories straight for when the media interviews them. They want to seem like they really gave this some deep thought.
Even though they're not supposed to -- and the evidence brought into the trial won't tell them -- I think they may also be trying to deduce who really outted Valerie Plame. If they are trying to do that, they are way off the reservation as to the issues in this trial. Off the reservation to "convict" Bush and Cheney is exactly where Fitzgerald's unethical closing argument wanted them to go.
This is DC. These people are not that bright. But, they do see three squares and a cot (without conviction and queen sized at that) as better than the hood on P street. Being sarcastic, but having lived there I could see it happening.
Neither can I. But, remember, movies and books about big trials (or, at least those that are much ado about nothing, like the Libby trial) are Hollyweird's bread and butter. We can't overlook the fact that they gave Gore's movie a fauxscar and how many people slept through that??
As Pach and I were heading to the elevators, I told him that I suspected that the thing that was happening to the jury is what happened to people on the blogs who got into this story — they got addicted to it.
They're busy sorting through the details, peeling back layers of the onion, fascinated by the process of mutual discovery as they explore the characters and events that led up to the trial
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Bush haters are busy peeling off the layers of an onion and when they are done they will have a peeled onion
I'm beginning to think it is a hung jury, the numbers for and against I wouldn't venture a guess on, but someone is trying to convince somebody else as to the timelines, etc. If it is hung, I don't think there will be a retrial as the judge will throw out the charges as bogus.
They don't have to be bright to sit around trying to figure out who really leaked Plame's name. In fact, they have to be dumb, because the Libby trial is not about that and no evidence was introduced at trial to make it possible for the jury to deduce who did the leaking.
But they asked for supplies and stationery, which strongly suggests they are trying to plot out the "whole" story. Regular Perry Masons and Paul Drakes, they are. Ugh!
Sorry, DU. Mistrial...
"I'm beginning to think it is a hung jury, the numbers for and against I wouldn't venture a guess on, but someone is trying to convince somebody else as to the timelines, etc. If it is hung, I don't think there will be a retrial as the judge will throw out the charges as bogus."
I agree, except for one thing. There will be another trial.
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