Jury Has Sent Out Note To Judge In Paul Manafort Trial

[Mrs. Overall]

from Talking Points Memo:

Just in:

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The jury in the Paul Manafort trial sent out a note to Judge T.S. Ellis Thursday afternoon. It’s unclear what the note says.

Lawyers and reporters hurried to the courtroom here as word emerged that the jury had sent out a message.

The jury is deliberating on the bank and tax fraud charges Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, faces. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/jury-submits-note-to-court-in-paul-manafort-trial

[manor321]

1. Can't wait to see what it's about

Do juries do this when they have reached a verdict or only if they have questions?

[3Hotdogs]

25. Both.

[Vinca]

2. Let's hope it asks whether it's unseemly to bring out the guilty verdicts after only 5 hours.

[ProudLib72]

3. Note says: Dear Judgey Poo, please bring us some Diet Coke

Uh oh!

[Sneederbunk]

23. Two pepperoni and one Hawaiian.

[spooky3]

4. Katy Tur just reported that Manafort was brought back into the courtroom. n/t

[blaze]

5. Manafort jury has four questions

Link to tweet

Manafort jury has four questions, will continue deliberations tomorrow.

3:12 PM - 16 Aug 2018

[Mrs. Overall]

7. I wonder if the questions will be made public?

[blaze]

9. questions

Link to tweet

Paul Manafort's jurors asked if the judge could "redefine" for them "reasonable doubt."
They also asked two questions related to Manafort's tax filing and foreign bank account disclosure charges.

[B2G]

10. No. Nt

[LanternWaste]

59. Nice swing, there.

[janx]

16. . . .

Link to tweet

[Laura PourMeADrink]

38. Why not good sign? Cuz of reasonable doubt question?

[janx]

41. I have no idea, but it's just an opinion.

Don't think it's because of the reasonable doubt question though.

[fallout87]

49. Because if there was clear/cut evidence of guilt...

they wouldn't be asking those questions. I remember this from the two times I served on a jury.

[KPN]

53. From my experience on a couple of juries,

because at least one juror is making the case for reasonable doubt.

[PoliticAverse]

21. Typically the answer to that one is yes, jury questions and the judge's answers...

are part of the court record.

[janx]

32. . . .

Link to tweet

[spooky3]

11. Katy says Manafort is in the courtroom "but we don't know why, yet" and

that the note includes 4 questions.

[spooky3]

14. "can you define 'reasonable doubt'" Judge: "NOT 'beyond all possible doubt'"; Ken D.: this is a

common question.

[spooky3]

17. Judge has dismissed jury for the day. Ken D (MSNBC): we still don't know why

Manafort is in the court room.

I'll rewind to try to get the other 3 qs in a few minutes.

[PoliticAverse]

22. He's in the courtroom because his side has a right to hear what the jury wants to know. n/t

[spooky3]

36. thx n/t

[Mrs. Overall]

19. That's good to hear that this is a common question.

On the surface asking about reasonable doubt sounds ominous (meaning that they might not convict him).

[spooky3]

26. Ken D: they asked a "complicated q about foreign bank account ownership"

Ken D: there is some dispute on one count where he had <50% ownership and maybe he didn't have a requirement to file FBAR report.

jury asked "about a shell company"; Judge: "rely on their collective recollection"

"can the exhibit lists be amended to include the indictment?"; Ken D: "that's a strange question because... jury has the indictment"

[janx]

29. It is a common question and I'm glad they asked it.

A lot of people think that beyond a reasonable doubt means beyond all doubt. It does not.

[Mrs. Overall]

34. That makes sense to distinguish "reasonable" from "beyond all" doubt.

[California_Republic]

52. Yup What a reasonable person would think...

[KPN]

55. Key words: "reasonable persons". Hope the prosecution

did a great job in this regard during the crap shoot ... err, jury selection.

[California_Republic]

58. I've Been on jury duty

The judge went over this many different times. I don’t think it’s unusual to ask. Because it’s really the only blue sky area of law

[pnwmom]

6. AND Katie Tur said Manafort is being brought back to the courtroom.

Why would they have done that just to ask the judge some questions? Weird.

[oswaldactedalone]

24. Having once been a jury foreman

I can say that we had two questions for the judge in the five or so hours we deliberated. Each time all parties to the case were brought back to the courtroom and were present while we asked our question and listened to the judge's explanation.

I'm thinking it's just standard operating procedure for Manafort to be in the courtroom when the jury asked their question.

[pnwmom]

28. So what happened? Innocent or guilty? And what do you think about

the jury's question about the meaning of reasonable doubt?

[oswaldactedalone]

50. If you're addressing the case where I was foreman

the result was "not guilty" as there was reasonable doubt about whether the evidence was convincing enough to establish guilt.

The reasonable doubt question most likely means at least one juror is trying to balance whether the evidence is convincing enough for a guilty verdict on at least one charge. It gives the defense a lift when a juror asks that question.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. The note sez:

We have a verdict, but we don't want to appear that we voted guilty too quickly (oopsie! guess a spoiler alert woulda been wise!). Besides, we want one more supper on the court's dime. Orders on the court!

[Leghorn21]

35. A couple twitter responses:

“Where did he get that ostrich jacket again?”

“Can we get more bagels in here?”

“Do you like me? Yes [ ] No [ ]
Maybe [ ]”



SHIT BE CRAY, Cirque!!

[njhoneybadger]

12. "Ruh-roh"

[oswaldactedalone]

15. Sounds like a hung jury

That's a troublesome question when the evidence is as overwhelming as this is.

[spooky3]

20. not according to Ken Doulanian reporting for MSNBC. And there are a lot of

charges, so the jury may be in a gray area on one or two of them, but believe that the evidence is overwhelming on others.

[greymattermom]

30. What happens if they vote on a bunch of charges but are "hung" up on a few?

Do they retry the few? If he gets a long sentence, it wouldn't matter.

[spooky3]

33. I'll let an expert lawyer answer that--I'm not one. nt

[Takket]

40. i'm not a legal expert but............

if the jury convicts on enough major charges for manafort to spend a long time in prison, the state isn't going to waste their time on the on minor charges being retried just to tack on a year or two

[PoliticAverse]

45. It's entirely up to the DOJ if they retry any charges the jury hangs on.

Note that both the prosecution and defense will find out what the vote was (i.e. 11-1, 6-6, etc.)
and can make a decision based on that.

Also if the defendant is convicted on the bulk of the charges there is little incentive for the prosecution to retry the rest.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

57. Jurors aren't necessarily picked for their smarts

If you've been on a jury (or to Voir Dire) you know what I mean.

A lot of people would find these concepts complicated.

[OnDoutside]

27. Squeaky bum time ....

[Ccarmona]

31. There Are 16 Seperate Counts

The jury must consider each count separately.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

39. And they are just now asking for exhibit cross reference to charge??

[OnDoutside]

42. Exactly. Unless you have one juror acting the maggot, there should be a high number of guilty

verdicts, based on the documents produced in evidence.

[beachbum bob]

37. the biggest part was the documents correlated to the 20 charges so the jury can review

for each charge, the other questions are standard and in no way is any "sign" to the prosecutor, in fact asking for the evidence to be correlated to each charge means this jury is serious and will take each of the 20 charges separately with the documents pertaining to each one.

Nothing here that looks good for Manafort as his defense is still based on hoping the jury will not believe the paper trail of evidence AND witness testimony

[spooky3]

43. Here is a WaPo story on the 4 questions--and it will be updated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/jury-begins-deliberations-in-paul-manaforts-tax--and-bank-fraud-trial/2018/08/16/d2b0f486-a170-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.972e1e8df697

[Mrs. Overall]

44. Thanks for posting the link to the WAPO story--it contains a lot more detail and explanation.

[triron]

47. This is slightly depressing.

[a kennedy]

46. Oh crap......a reasonable doubt question???

and then the defense team comes out and says, this is great news??? Crap....

[MaryMagdaline]

48. I think he's guilty as hell but even I would not check guilty

On every count without carefully considering the definitions of each crime. They are doing their job

[AlexSFCA]

51. when is the verdict expected to come ouy?

[PoliticAverse]

54. There is no expectation as to when. n/t

[Algernon Moncrieff]

56. Here is the cynical answer

Tomorrow after 2 PM. Reason: the jury doesn't want to deal with this over a weekend. They most likely would dawdle today even if they were in unanimous agreement because not a lot of people want to go back to work for just one day (remember - if you couldn't miss work, you got yourself thrown off this jury).

The question about "what constitutes reasonable doubt" means either someone has bought the defense argument (possible) or is seriously overthinking this (equally possible).

The jurors in the majority will pressure the jurors in the minority to wrap it up and get out by late tomorrow afternoon. If this goes much past Saturday, the defense will probably be dancing and skipping.