Two days before the jury at the embassy bombing trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani would reach a verdict, it seemed to be on the verge of a deadlock.
A juror sent a note to the judge on Monday asking to be excused. Her decision, she wrote, was “not going to change” and she was being attacked for it by the other jurors at the trial.
It was not clear then whether that juror was in favor of acquittal or conviction; the jury ultimately decided to acquit the defendant on all (257 charges!) but one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property.
But in highlighting the jury’s dissension, that juror at his trial, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, offered a reminder of the stubborn place of the holdout in the legal system.
The atmosphere in her jury room was “positively poison,” recalled a Manhattan woman who was briefly famous as the holdout Juror in the 2004 trial of two corporate executives in New York.
“They shouted at me,” Ms. Jordan said Wednesday. “One of the jurors threatened me. He turned on me in a fury, just a fury, and he said, ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life destroying you.’ ”
Jurors’ notes in any number of cases have disclosed the infinite variety of holdout-induced frustration, including descriptions of chairs thrown and insults hurled.
Holdouts can be oddballs and misfits. But they can also be people devoted to the principle that a just conviction requires true unanimity, not compromise.
“You never know what sleeper there is on the jury who is going to think about things differently than most of us think.” said a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense lawyer in New York. Last month, in a case in Brooklyn involving narcotics distribution charges, one juror simply refused to talk to the others.
For lawyers and judges, the possibility of a holdout can be a legal minefield. Judges are not permitted to ask jurors the details of continuing deliberations. They can, and often do, bring divided juries back into the courtroom for special instructions — sometimes called “dynamite” instructions because they are intended to break a logjam. But under the law, those instructions, while they can encourage open-mindedness, cannot require jurors to abandon deeply held beliefs.
A mistrial can be a good development for a defendant because it presents another chance to fight the case — if prosecutors decide on a retrial at all.
But defense lawyers say it can be treacherous to press a judge to declare a mistrial if there is still a chance at an acquittal. A holdout who does not waver can bring a mistrial; but one who gives in can bring an acquittal.
One lawyer in a narcotics case last month, said he decided not to push for a mistrial when the foreman wrote that one juror refused to deliberate. The judge gently questioned the juror, a laborer with a grade-school education, who said he was worried that he could not keep up with the complicated jury discussions. The judge assured the juror that he had an important role to play and sent him back to the jury room.
The defendant was acquitted.
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: November 19, 2010 from the New York Times
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This is just another example of a jury being fair, even in unpopular narcotics and money laundering cases. The case in the above article was a terrorism case involving a Middle Eastern defendant with no ties to the U.S. He was accused of trying to kill the very people that were judging him.
If you have a shot at winning a case, you really do have a shot. Although I hasten to add that you are no better than your evidence and not every case should be tried. But the system is designed to give the benefit of the doubt to the defendant, and jurors try to be fair and follow the court’s instructions. Prosecutors may be more than happy or relieved to have you believe all jurors are prejudiced, and on any jury panel there may be a prejudiced odd ball in the bunch, maybe even two or three, but not all twelve.
David Zapp