Tim Worstall

Conrad Black Trial

So the jury in the Conrad Black trial is currently deadlocked. 

The jury in the trial of Lord Black of Crossharbour
was ordered to continue its deliberations last night after the jury
told the judge it was deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous
verdict on at least one of the charges.

Lord
Black, 62, returned to the court in Chicago to learn that the jury,
after deliberating for more than 40 hours over nine days, had sent a
note to Judge Amy St Eve, saying: “We have discussed and deliberated on
all the evidence and are still unable to reach a unanimous verdict on
one or more counts. Please advise.”

Now we don’t know whether it’s deadlocked on more than one of the counts, nor in fact whether it’s over one of the major ones or not. To be honest though I’m surprised it’s got this far. Given the vehemence with which he was denounced in the beginning I had thought it was going to be rather more open and shut than this.

In

5 responses

  1. Devil's Kitchen Avatar
    Devil’s Kitchen

    “I had thought it was going to be rather more open and shit…”
    Nary a truer word spoken, etc., you pendant.
    DK…
    Tim adds: err, yes, worth editing that one I think.

    Reply
  2. Andrew Paterson Avatar
    Andrew Paterson

    From what I’ve made of the trial, the prosecution have made a lot of claims in their opening statements that they simply haven’t backed up with evidence at all. One of Black’s fellow defendants was all but cleared by the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, but that didn’t stop the prosecutor putting him in the dock in the first place. A very poor showing for US justice, and the US prosecutor based system.

    Reply
  3. Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Blithering Bunny

    You guys haven’t been following Steyn’s blog coverage of the trial? You’ve missed an absolute treat. It looks like Black and co have done nothing wrong, but the government was determined to convict them anyway.
    (And before you say this is just Steyn’s take, I’ve been looking at writers who are hostile to Black, and I can’t see that they’ve shown that these guys are guilty of any of the charges).

    Reply
  4. Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Blithering Bunny

    Steyn’s blog is here.

    Reply
  5. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    Agreed: Steyn shows that the Government’s case is mainly constructed around portraying bog-standard non-compete agreements as being somehow criminal. The only surprise (well, not that much of a surprise, I suppose) is that some of the jury were taken in by it.

    Reply

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