Posted on 04/01/2022 8:31:55 PM PDT by bitt
Ghislaine Maxwell lost her bid for a new trial Friday after she requested a re-do because of a chatty juror who threw her conviction into doubt with a series of post-trial interviews.
The order by Manhattan federal court Judge Alison Nathan came weeks after she grilled the juror, who was identified by media outlets by his first and middle names, Scotty David, about his answers on a juror questionnaire during the selection process last year.
David responded “no” to questions on the form that asked if he or his close family and friends had ever been the victims of sexual abuse, according his publicly filed questionnaire.
At the hearing, David claimed he was “super distracted” while filling out the questionnaire and mistakenly marked “no” to the questions as he “flew through” the form.
In interviews with a number of media outlets shortly after Maxwell was convicted, David revealed he had been the victim of childhood sexual abuse – and said he shared his experience during jury deliberations.
His stories, he told Reuters, helped convince his fellow panelists to convict Maxwell of sex trafficking and other charges.
In court filings submitted after the hearing, Maxwell’s attorneys said David’s answers reveal his bias because his childhood sexual abuse was “remarkably” similar to accounts given by victims who testified at trial.
“If there is one thing we learned from Juror 50 at the Hearing, it is this: he should never have been a member of this jury,” Maxwell’s attorneys wrote.
“The abuse Juror 50 described at the Hearing … was remarkably similar to the abuse described by the government’s four key victim witnesses and would, by itself, have formed the basis for a challenge for cause,” they wrote.
If David had revealed his sexual abuse during selection, he would have been stricken from
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Barker Carter
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4h
@elENoCHle I wonder why Brandon hasn’t pardoned her, yet.
Well this is such good news it bears repeating!
I must be unusually stupid
A juror is forced to perform his “civic duty” for which he is paid well below minimum wage for an indeterminate period of time. Financial hardship is not an excuse to get one out of jury duty
After the trial is over, the juror is compelled not to tell what he was forced to witness? The trial is over; he should be free to tell anything he wants, about his feelings, the facts he based his decision on, or anything else
Seems the criminals have more rights than a citizen has
One can only hope the trial transcripts and all evidence is in the public record
The issue is not that the juror gave post trial interviews. Jurors have the right to talk about the trial or refuse to talk about the trial all they want after the trial is over.
The problem is that in post trial interviews the juror admitted that he lied in answering the court’s pretrial questionnaire, about facts that probably would have gotten him stricken by the defense if they had known.
The juror lied to get on on his jury questionnaire, and in doing so risked invalidating the entire trial. Thankfully, the Judge has rejected Maxwell’s request for now, but the appeal will still be pushed higher.
Why give her a new trial? She’s already been found guilty of facilitation of child prostitution apparently for nobody.
if you were on trial
how many perjerous jurors would you want deciding your fate?
none
one
all
some other number
?
asking for a friend
Lol...yeah. That’s JUST what they need before an election.
IMO, a juror’s ‘civic duty’ is to answer any potential bias screening questions, truthfully - whether by questionnaire or by verbal query.
It was a more of a problem than just a perjurious juror (who I would not want deciding my fate either).
Maxwell was accused of committing various sex crimes. The pretrial jury questionnaire specifically asked the potential jurors if they had ever been a victim of sexual abuse. The juror answered no. Then, after the trial, the juror said in interviews that he had in fact been a victim of sexual abuse and that he told other jurors his story to sway them during the deliberations.
If the juror had truthfully answered yes in the questionnaire, then the defense likely would have used one of their preemptory challenges to strike him as a juror. If you are on trial for allegedly committing a crime, you don't want jurors who have been victims of the same or similar crime deciding your fate.
Plus, this was a very publicized case. You don't want jurors who want to be on the jury for the publicity. A juror who lies to get onto the jury and then starts giving interviews immediately after the trial was probably in it for the publicity (and maybe for paid interviews or a book deal).
I think there is a 50/50 chance that the court of appeals will reverse the conviction and order a new trial; however, I think that the trial judge made the right call denying her motion for a new trial. There was nothing that the trial judge could do about the lying juror after the trial was over. Rather than order a new trial, you might as well deny the motion and let her take a shot with the court of appeals. Maybe the court of appeals will decide to reverse and order a new trial, which would put her exactly where she would have been if the trial court had granted her motion, or maybe they won't, in which case it would have been a huge waste of time and money for the trial judge to grant the motion and give her a new trial.
Maxwell is still refusing to hand over the archive af extortion videos that she and Epstein compiled on various international elites having sexual relations with minors back on Epstein Island in the Virgin Islands.
So far Prince Andrew is the only fallen “angel”, but Bill CLinton has a huge pile of crap the feds want expunged from reality, along with many others.
Thats why Maxwell is in jail. She should just release the Kraken and then appeal her convistion to the Supreme Court.Thise archives are likely the only thing keeping Maxwell among the living.
If the juror lied, I have no problem with any punishment. And yes, that includes death. In the good old days, that was the punishment and a man’s word was worth something.
When they say post-trial, the word “post” means after.
There are jurors who choose to talk about a trial, after the trial. And I am fine with that. I am not fine with a juror who breaks his word, and talks about a trial before it’s over; thereby creating a mistrial. This allows a guilty party to cheat the system, and again there is no punishment that is too cruel for such an act
Letting people “get away” with criminal behavior, whether it is allowing the accused to escape justice; or a judge issuing a gag order on jurists after a trial is over; should carry a very high price
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