Jury In CIA Leak Case Recesses Without Reaching Verdict

[kpete]

CIA Leak Jury Recesses for Weekend
AP | February 23, 2007 05


WASHINGTON — Jurors deliberated a third day Friday without reaching a verdict on whether former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby obstructed the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative married to a prominent Iraq war critic.

After 2 1/2 days of deliberations over the fate of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, the eight women and four men went home until Monday.

In addition to obstruction of the leak investigation, Libby is charged with lying to the FBI and a grand jury about how he learned about and whom he told about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Prosecutors say he concocted a story to avoid losing his job for disclosing classified information to reporters without authorization. Libby said he gave investigators his best recollection of what happened and any errors resulted from memory flaws.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070223/cia-leak-trial

[H2O Man]

1. Without reaching

a final verdict on all counts.

[thereismore]

2. Short deliberation usually means a "not guilty on all counts" verdict -

remember the OJ trial? So I am guessing he will be found guilty on at least one count.

[meldroc]

3. Did I hear right about one juror being a right-wing nutjob?

Maybe she's the lone holdout - refusing to give a guilty verdict even though the rest of the jury's ready to lynch her. How do people like that get past voir dire?

[Spazito]

4. Here is good information on the charges, imo

The work/analysis was done by author Marcy Wheeler who has written Anatomy of Deceit

Plamemania: The Evidence, the Cooper Charge(s)

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/01/plamemania_the_.html

The Scooter Libby Trial: The Russert Charges

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/01/the_scooter_lib.html

The Scooter libby Trial: The Obstruction Charge

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/01/the_scooter_lib_1.html

[WiseButAngrySara]

5. How long do you think this is going to take? k(pete)nr! ....n/t

[Peace Patriot]

6. The more they look at the evidence, the more chance they will convict.

Fitzgerald's case is very solid, very evidence-based, and was very well-presented; very clear; I'm tempted to say "slam dunk" but you never know with juries. Libby's defense was hot air--and very poorly presented, with what seemed like gratuitous insults to the jury (very weird). But the burden of proof is on Fitz.

As I said, if they're paying attention to the evidence, there is a good chance they will convict. And the length of deliberations is one indication that they are. (It's also a complex case--so it would take time just to go through it, count by count.) I heard that they requested large paper, marking pens and photos of the witnesses. Sounds like a wall diagram. That's a god sign, I think. Attention to the evidence.