I thought at the time a mistrial was declared very quickly. Now I think we know why.

[mobeau69]

Ellis knew only one juror needed to change their vote.

[Lee-Lee]

1. No, that was a typical timeframe

Judges won’t keep a jury forever. If they report that it’s a hopeless deadlock on come charges, even with just one juror, then they won’t keep them forever.

In fact if a judge did that it would almost be grounds for a strong appeal. Criminal juries are required to be unanimous for good reasons. If a judge just holds them forever then you don’t get juries voting on conscience or fact, but you wear people down just because they want to need to get it over with.

Not everything is a conspiracy just because it didn’t go your way.

[mobeau69]

2. I understand that. My point is that it was done very quickly.

And it couldn't be a "conspiracy" because the decision was his and his alone.

[Lee-Lee]

3. It wasn't very quickly

The jury was out several days and had evidently been at that impass for a while.

[MaryMagdaline]

4. I first understood you to mean that Ellis was afraid that the one juror would take his or

her guilty vote back on the counts on which he/she had voted guilty, thereby hanging the entire verdict on all counts.

Next, I understood you to mean that Ellis did not want the jury panel convincing the one juror to join in with the guilty votes on all the remaining charges.

Interesting perspective either way, but would like to know which way you see it.

[mobeau69]

5. Ellis seemed to display a bias early on when he said that the prosecution didn't really care

about Manafort; that they were only interested in the president. There were a couple of other instances of bias IMO as well.

I was thinking that maybe he was afraid that the 11, if given enough time, would persuade the one to change their vote on the other 10 counts. From the time they sent the note to Ellis that they couldn't reach a verdict on all charges and he sent them back in with instructions to the time he declared a mistrial wasn't a very long period of time.

I never thought about your first scenario. That's scary.

[MaryMagdaline]

6. Got it **thanks for clarification

To your point, it's interesting what the Trump juror said about Manafort ... he never would have been caught if they weren't after Trump. This echoes what Ellis was saying, "You only want to get Trump, you don't even care about these charges." The jurors may have heard all of this pre-trial, as I did.

Also, the remaining charges all (most) had something to do with Gates. Maybe the judge's in-court statement about "He couldn't have known what was going on if you were stealing from him" had an impact.

This judge definitely let his bias show.