Denis Collins. a juror in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, talks to the press regarding the verdict in the trial, Tuesday, March 6, 2007, outside federal court in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Posted on 03/06/2007 6:35:50 PM PST by SkyPilot
WASHINGTON - Jurors in the Libby trial turned their deliberation room into one big visual aid, plastering the walls with dozens of poster-size summaries of witness testimony.
Denis Collins. a juror in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, talks to the press regarding the verdict in the trial, Tuesday, March 6, 2007, outside federal court in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
They pushed two long tables together, pored over testimony, reviewed their notes and spent a week just laying out the evidence.
But in the end, it came down to credibility and they simply did not believe the former White House aide's story.
"There were good managerial type people on this jury who took everything apart and put it in the right place," juror Denis Collins said after he and his colleagues convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. "After that, it wasn't a matter of opinion. It was just there."
Prosecutors said Libby lied about how he learned the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame and whom he told. Libby said he told investigators his best recollection of his conversations, but, in the heat of his demanding work schedule, forgot some details or made errors.
Libby's lawyers urged jurors not to convict a man for being forgetful and jurors took that to heart. They did not immediately vote in the jury room, opting to assess the evidence before taking a poll
"It was a very tough question to get through, to try to figure out whether he could have forgotten," juror Jeff Comer said. "Everyone has their moments of forgetfulness."
Libby testified that he learned Plame's identity from Cheney, forgot it, then learned it again a month later from NBC reporter Tim Russert. Prosecutors say that was a convenient story crafted to conceal the fact that Libby discussed official government information.
"There was no smoking gun," Comer said.
Instead, jurors relied on the testimony of several government officials and journalists who said they discussed Plame with Libby. Jurors made a list of nine people who talked to Libby about Plame, and Collins remembered one juror making an observation.
"If I'm told something once, I'm likely to forget it," Collins recalled the juror saying. "If I'm told it many times, I'm less likely to forget it. If I myself tell it to someone else, I'm even less likely to forget it."
Collins said he was intrigued when defense lawyer Theodore Wells raised the idea the Libby was being made a scapegoat for White House political strategist Karl Rove.
"There was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?'" Collins said. "I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy."
Comer said he can only recall that idea coming up once.
"For me, I really needed to focus on the charge in front of us," Comer said. "There was this background noise, but it played almost no role for me."
During opening statements, Wells told jurors the only way he would lose the case was if they allowed their feelings about the Iraq war and the Bush administration to influence their decision. But Collins said neither topic came up.
"The people who led us were strict taskmasters. Let's stick to the facts," Collins said. "This was not a case about, 'Who can we punish for going into Iraq?' We didn't go there. This wasn't about the war."
The basic problem with democracy in our age is this: it's a fairly reasonable system of government for a fairly homogeneous group of people with shared ideals and values; it is NOT a reasonable way to share power between two or more groups with nothing in common at all which basically just hate eachother.
I don't understand this case.
Is Libby the one who revealed the name of that secret agent, Plane?
If not, the man is innocent and we should be looking to bring to justice the person(s) who revealed the name of the secret agent, not go after innocent people. I hope this case is not closed yet.
That's all I know about this case.
I didn't like him immediately.....didn't even know he was a former journalist!
He seemed to think he was much too important, IMO.
>>>Instead, jurors relied on the testimony of several government officials and journalists who said they discussed Plame with Libby.<<<
The word "journalist" is the key to this travesty of justice. The jurors believed journalists, who rarely tell the truth, over Libby, who had most likely never told a lie in his life.
"Jury nullification" sort of means the opposite of what you think it means. It describes a jury acting outside the law. What you mean is a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which is unlikely to happen in this case.
Denis Collins clearly had overwhelming personal conflicts-of-interest, since his professional life as a writer and sometime journalist would hardly be served by a "not guilty" verdict that would have been a huge slap in the face to some leading figures in the profession.
Now he plans to cash in with a book on the case, my what a surprise!
Also, was this author of multiple books, who has written a book on the Enron scandal and also on the spy world, really honest in the jury selection process if he pretended ignorance of this case and pretended to be someone who does not follow the news?????
I'd bet big money that Denis Collins lied his butt off to get onto this jury, for if the judge and defense had known who he "really is" there is no way he'd belong on a jury in this type of case.
IIRC, Libby's lawyer raised the issue during the trial that Libby was being made a scapegoat.
Who would even phrase it this way except for a Bush hating leftist?
Which pretty much describes every liberal journalist (and some less liberal ones, as well) in the biz. Actually, about 90% of anyone vaguely associated with the federal government fits this description.
Earlier tonight, my liberal wife stated the American Justice system worked once again. Reminded me of the Dred Scott Decision of 1857. The System worked back then, too... right?
I'd be very surprised if either side was unaware of Collins' profession.
Sort of like putting a Doctor on the jury for a medical malpractice suit.
The only "Denis Collins" I can find on web searches seems to be teaching in Madison, WI..... BUT..... info on several Madison websites indicate he teaches business ethics and wrote a book on the Enron scandal..... also, he wrote an article in 2003 criticizing the Pentagon team with Adm. Poindexter working on a "terror futures market" as a way to analyze risk. So is there any way it is one and the same "Denis Collins" who wrote the Enron book (which is said to criticize Cheney in one part), who teaches business ethics in Madison, and who somehow found a way to be on a DC jury? College profs do get leave of absence for a semester or a year at a stretch, so it's at least possible he could end up in DC doing research, etc...... or it could simply be two different people with the same unusual spelling of "Denis" (but it sure is strange that I'm not finding any evidence that "Denis Collins" has written for WaPo???).
http://www.edgewood.edu/catalogue/faculty/default.htm
Denis Collins
Associate Professor, Business
B.S. Montclair State College
M.A. Bowling Green State University
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh
But did they know about THIS (if it's the same "Denis Collins" -- is there a different "Denis Collins in Madison or are they the same guy??):
Efficiency, Not Morality, Behind Terror Betting Parlor
Wisconsin State Journal :: OPINION :: A8
Saturday, August 9, 2003
Denis Collins
http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAM/press2/WisconsinSJ-8-9-03.htm
With good reason, most Americans found the Pentagon's recent efforts to create a futures market predicting terrorist activities and political instability to be morally repugnant.
But now, hard-core free market apologists, who tend to have the ear of the current presidential administration, are taking the offense by arguing that Admiral John Poindexter was merely applying the virtue of free market analysis to the prediction of political instability.
What I really wanted Hannity to ask Novak is, "Don't you think that all this could have been avoided if only you had revealed that Armitage was your source within days of your initial column? Don't you feel any guilt in letting the WH twist in the wind, giving the Leftists like Wilson all the ammo they needed in their attacks on the Administration and letting Libby go to trial?"
Novak absolutely disgusts me for his allowing an innocent man to be tried and convicted in a Soviet styled Political Show Trial.
Shame on you Novak! Shame!
I agree somewhat with that...however, if he gave Armitage his word then he should have kept it....as he did...It is Armitage who should be ashamed....HE is the ass who let this go on too long
THIS "Denis Collins" has produced a book on "Spying" that is riddled with errors:
Denis Collins, with the International Spy Museum.
SPYING: The Secret History of History. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 2004. 166 pages, bibliography, photos, index.
https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/Vol49no2/bookshelf_11.htm
This coffee-table book, based on the exhibits found in the immensely popular Washington, DC, International Spy Museum, has an attractive cover. But its subtitle claims far more than its content delivers. In attempting to satisfy “the craving in each of us” to know more about the people, operations, and tradecraft of spying (vi), the museum has produced a disappointing book. It is not a matter of being superficial when covering a wide range of topics, it is a matter of being accurate, especially when the source enjoys considerable authority in the field. SPYING contains far too many errors of fact, both historical and contemporaneous. In the former category, in a discussion of British intelligence, author Daniel Defoe is called “the father of British intelligence” (147) when that accolade goes to Sir Francis Walsingham. In the section on George Washington, America’s first spymaster, the museum tells us that Washington was camped in Valley Forge when he decided to attack the Hessians at Trenton in 1776 (12). History, however, records that Washington’s winter encampment at Valley Forge did not occur until a year later.
In a claim related to more recent events—that World War II double agent Dusko Popov gave the FBI evidence of a planned attack on Pearl Harbor and Director J. Edgar Hoover ignored the warnings—the book errs on both counts. Popov brought no warning, and what he did bring, Hoover gave to the War and Navy departments. The museum’s assertion that William Colby and Ian Fleming were graduates of the World War II paramilitary training facility in Canada, Camp X, is equally in error (27).[5] And then there is the story of William Stephenson, head of British intelligence in New York during World War II (57). Most of the biographical details are incorrect, but, more to the point, some operational details are wrong, too. For example, the claim that Stephenson “delivered to President Franklin Roosevelt the map of a scheme to divide Central and South America into German colonies” leaves out the fact that the map, mentioned by the president in a nationwide radio address, was a fake prepared by Stephenson’s unit to influence American public opinion![6]
Turning to Cold War intelligence, SPYING’s narrative notes that after disbanding the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), President Truman “refused all entreaties to form a peacetime agency to collect and evaluate intelligence” (40). Not so, as historian Thomas F. Troy has shown. On the same day that Truman abolished the OSS, he sent a letter to the secretary of state saying: “I particularly desire that you take the lead in developing a comprehensive and coordinated foreign intelligence program for all Federal agencies concerned with that type of activity. This should be . . . under the State Department.”[7] Then there is the sidebar stating that “In 1947, CIA head Allen Dulles . . . ” when that was a position he would not hold for another six years. In the same vein, KGB illegal Rudolf Abel was not, as the museum claims, “fingered by the newspaper boy.” A KGB defector did that job. When describing Operation GOLD, the tapping of Soviet telephone lines in East Berlin, the suggestion that the Soviets might “wrongly believe that the West had not broken its cipher code, making the intercepts harmless,” is put right by David Murphy and Sergei Kondrachev in their book Battleground Berlin—the lines were not encrypted.
While SPYING gives a good idea of the topics and exhibits to be found in the International Spy Museum, the errors in the descriptive commentary, only some of which are mentioned above, diminish its value as a contribution to intelligence literature and reflect poorly on the reputation of the museum.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.