Posted on 09/13/2002 7:28:52 AM PDT by snopercod
Bill Simon, the Republican nominee for governor, spoke with CaliforniaJournal recently for a story to be published in the magazine's special election issue this October. In that story the governor and a broad arrayof other state leaders and politicians examine the current race for governorand the state of politics in California today. Here, California Journal offers a timely sample of the coverage that will appear in its October special issue.
SACRAMENTO-Bill Simon said in a recent interview with California Journal that some of the jurors who found hisfamily company guilty of fraud earlier this summer were Democrats who may have been influenced by his Republican campaign for governor.
"It could be possible," he said. "Occassionally, there are outlandish jury verdicts. Was this a politically motivated verdict?I don't know. But it is not founded on the facts."
Simon spoke with the magazine before a Los Angeles judge Thursday overturned the jury's unanimous finding that William E. Simon and Sons defrauded a former business partner, who also turned out to be a convicted drug dealer.
Campaign officials said the candidate's suspicions about the jury were based on interviews with jurors conducted by attorneys for William E. Simon and Sons after the verdict.
Attorney John Morrissey told California Journal that the jurors said their decision was not influenced by politics. Buthe also said they had seen campaign television commercials by the time the trial started in July. And he said they identified one juror who was active in Democratic politics and had strong feelings about the court case.
"In many ways, she apparently drove the conversation,"he said. "How big a part of [the verdict] it is, I don't know."
Morrissey did not reveal the identity of the juror and he said the lawyers did not interview her. But during the juryselection process, he said she described herself as a "politically active" college graduate student. He said she had experience on ballot measure campaigns and she assisted a college professor working on the recent Democratic reapportionment process.
Morrissey was not involved in the jury selection for the case and he did not know why the individual juror was not excused by attorneys for the Simon firm. He speculated that the lawyers may havereached their limit on how many prospective jurors they were allowed torule out.
Morrissey also said his notes from the jury selection process did not identify how many jurors were registered as Democratsor Republicans, which he said is a customary question during a trial likethis one.
While the jurors said their decision was not influenced by politics, Morrissey said, "for whatever reason … [jurors] saw this as big guys versus little guys-and they saw Simon and Sons as the big guy."
Last July, the jury found that William E. Simon and Sons concealed from the founder of a Southern California payphone company its plans to borrow heavily and expand the company so it could go public. The plan failed and the company was taken over by banks, costing the partner, Edward Hindelang, $23 million. The jury ordered Simon's firm to pay $78 million.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant overturned the jury verdict because he said Hindelang "defrauded" Simon's firm and other investors by not disclosing his previous drug conviction and the fact that federal authorities were attempting to recover drug money, some of which may have been used to found the phone company.
Simon's suspicions about the jury were not the only political fingers pointed at this court case, however.
Campaign aides to Governor Gray Davis reacted to the judge's decision by noting that Chalfant was appointed by former Republican Governor Pete Wilson and that he and his wife and father have been contributors to GOP campaigns, including Wilson's. Garry South, chief strategist for Davis, stopped short of saying the decision was politically motivated.
"I'll let you decide," he said.
Why should Simon bother? He's been vindicated, and it's getting plenty of headlines. And Davis spent $16 mil on attack ads and got almost nothing for them. Simon's still at his heels in the polls, taken before this reversal.
Reading the other story, it seems that this woman was the Democrat "mole" who influenced the jury. no wonder she is outraged, her handiwork is undone!
Liberallarry is living up to his name ... more distortions from Liberals on this.
The Left uses the legal system to obtain corrupt laws they couldn't get politically. They hate the legal system like I hate my paycheck.
How many female college students were there on this jury ... so this same woman was the one who the Sac Bee gave all the colmun space for??
And she just happened to know the review judge was a Wilson appointee?
When your friends tell you your ads are getting stale is a signal to continue running them as the ads are making an impression. "Guerrilla Marketing" by Jay Levinson.
The judge found that Simon's gullability merited protection while Hildelang's didn't. What kind of law is that?
The article at the head of this thread claims bias on the part of a Democratic juror. So what? You have the right to a trial by your peers - not by your Republican peers, not by your sympathetic peers, not by friendly peers. You have the right to influence the selection of jurors by means of challanges.
You also have the right of review by higher courts. While necessary, there's no denying the possibility of bias at this level as well. I haven't done a Google on Chalfant yet but I will.
The judge is represented (in the Times) article as saying that Simon "concealed" his plan to charge 1.5 million. Is the article incorrect? Is the judge incorrect? Was the judge unaware of the 4.5 million competitor's plan?
And try replying with facts instead of insults. I'm going by what I read in the L.A. Times. I said in my original post that I'm dependent on the accuracy of the story. I'm still waiting for refutation.
So the judge ordered Hildelang to pay Simon? I missed that part.
True.
Everyone manipulates the system as much as they can in an attempt to gain advantage. The beauty of our system of checks and balances is that it recognizes this human failing and does a pretty good job of dispensing justice anyway.
But it's a pretty good job. Not a perfect job. I used provocative rhetoric to counter what I thought was provocative rhetoric - the claim that the original verdict should be discounted because of possible political motivated.
I said no such thing.
No need to get snippy about it. [click]
Sounds to me like the judge found that Hildelang's fraud was not worthy of a monetary award. Hey, since you're so concerned about fraud in our government, how about doing a few Google searches on that one fella - what'shisname? Gray Davis!
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