For those of you unfamiliar with the case of Cyril Wecht in Pittsburgh, the Carpetbbager has the background. Short version, a prominent Democrat was accused of improperly using a public fax machine for personal gain to the toon of a grand or so, and this was worth a $400,000 dollar investigation and trial then ended up in a hung jury.
I know, that is all bizarre in and of itself, but this is the Bush Justice Department, so who knows what the hell is really going on. At any rate, today we learn of a new development:
Two jurors said Thursday they were unnerved by FBI requests for home visits to explain why they deadlocked in the federal public corruption trial of former Allegheny County coroner Cyril H. Wecht.
Experts said the practice of using FBI agents to contact and interview jurors in their homes after mistrials was unusual, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh characterized it as “commonplace.”
“I thought it was kind of intimidating,” the jury foreman said about the FBI phone call.
Said another juror, “I found it kind of unusual.”
Now, just because I have never heard of this sort of thing does not mean it is not commonplace. This may be quite normal for the FBI to come to your house to ask you why you decided a case one way or another, even if it is creepy and intimidating. Or, maybe not:
Wecht defense attorney Jerry McDevitt declined to say whether the defense team spoke to jurors, but said the FBI’s contact with jurors troubled him.
“That’s the problem with their heavy-handed approach to this. Why would they need to talk to them now? They’ve already decided to retry him,” McDevitt said. “I think given the circumstances of this case, it’s coercive. It appears that way with these jurors.”
Westmoreland County defense attorney Tom Ceraso, who was not involved in the case, said in his decades of experience trying cases in federal court he has never heard of the FBI telephoning or interviewing jurors.
“If I’m a prospective juror in the second trial, and I’m hearing stories that if I don’t agree with the government that I might get calls from the FBI, that could have a very, very deleterious impact,” Ceraso said. “I would think that’s very bothersome to have that happen.”
Chime in if you have any information on this.
dricey
Just think: If we elect John W. McCain in November, we can have four more years of this!
D0n Camillo
Great. I was wondering when they were finally going to get around to jury tampering. They’ve done just about everything else to pervert the course of justice.
Ninerdave
I don’t think John McCain could even be this bad.
Having said that only 283 more days.
Beej
As an attorney, I can tell you that this is decidedly not commonplace. Anyone who says it’s commonplace is lying through their teeth. Someone needs to ask the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh to name two other cases where this was done. Doubt they’ll be able to do it.
Lies, lies, lies. So what else is new?
D0n Camillo
Let’s hope we never find out. It’s imperative that we keep Republicans out of power until they regain some form of sanity. Maybe we can dig up Eisenhower and find some way to clone him.
Perry Como
Why should the jurors fear anything if they have nothing to hide?
BC
I know why the FBI has to go to their houses and do the interviews – to look at the countertops. Doncha know that if you have granite countertops, that is prima facie evidence that you have been taking a bribe from the defendant?
Dennis - SGMM
The FBI? Why not send some junior attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s office? No matter what the intent, sending armed (And FBI agents are all armed no matter what the errand) agents of the government to the homes of jurors who responded to the jury summons and did their duty as citizens is an act that stinks on ice.
Martin
You’re missing the point. Wecht is a Democrat. That means he was obviously using the fax machine to send secret plans to Bin Laden. Now the jurors are clearly terrorist sympathizers as well.
I think some stress positions will help them to explain why they hate America.
linda
not only intimidation; but since the feds are hellbent on convicting him, it’s useful to discover the weaknesses in the prosecution case — what worked for them and what didn’t — from the jurors’ perspectives. that way they can tailor the next prosecution accordingly.
kchiker
Reason #134145 to laugh hysterically next time some Republican on the television preaches to ME about the benefits of limited government.
ed
If we can’t intimidate jurors, then the terrorists win.
RSA
I have no information. I do have a question: Do I have a legal obligation to discuss what went on in a jury room, if the FBI asks me?
srv
I dont’ have any information, but just another example of the opacity of the way our system operates. I found this very interesting:
Difference between slot machines and voting machines
Can anyone but weep for this illusion of democracy?
h/t reddit
Tim
I think you’ve come to wrong place. Check with Volokh and then let us know.
Tim
Actually, it would seem to be good practice to check with the jurors before conducting a retrial, but Dennis is right, send some attorneys, the FBI is heavy-handed.
Wilfred
It used to be said that a man only had rights if he was willing to assert them. Maybe that’s still true but it needs to be emended that rights also depend on enough people respecting them. The FBI’s actions here (in a political case), legal or not, are intimidating and not consistent with any America I knew about.
But shit, after starting a fucking war and destroying an entire society based on a series of lies and manipulations what else can you expect? Soon we’ll be hearing about the FBI visiting jury members DURING the fucking trial.
The wheels have come off, folks.
Jen
Right. The FBI, I should think, very uncommon. Attorneys from either side do sometimes interview the jurors afterwards. They want to know what makes juries tick so their advocacy can be more effective in future cases. What did they like, what did they find persuasive, why did they decide how they did, did I as the attorney have any annoying distracting mannerisms, etc. Clearly, this is primarily just instructional for future, unrelated cases.
To answer RSA’s question, I can think of no legal principle that would compel you to answer the FBI’s questions about jury deliberations, absent a warrant or subpoena or some such criminal thingamajig which I do not practice.
smiley
Of course. This is not unusual. Sending FBI agents is.
Jen
That’s why I led with this.
Zifnab
Hey, listen. A year or so back this guy was skating on thin ice and about to get sacked. He’s just fighting for job security here. Sure a $1k fax non-scandal that can’t even score an honest conviction seems like a waffer-thin charge to press in the first place. But its all he’s got. Those damn highly-corruptible and criminally incompetent Democrats just weren’t breaking the law and taking bribe money as much as they should have been.
So if he’s got to send a pair of Feds to your door, maybe have them look through your finances or rifle through your trash can, to get his perp who are we to judge? If no one is doing anything wrong, they won’t have anything to worry about.
Jen
Sorry, smiley, I thought you were quoting me for a sec and now I realize you weren’t.
w vincentz
Back to our beloved President, the uniter that appeals to our best patriotic impulses…Can we PLEASE give our Commander-in-chief, the flight suited one on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, a F’n break? Didn’t he give us all the “straight talk” about current events in Iraq yesterday?
Well, as Ambassador Crocker, um, ah, er, would, um, say, umm, maybe, er, um, NOT.
Here, read it yourselves:
http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=48043
ParagonPark
In every jurisdiction in which I have practiced. The parties are not allowed to contact jurors after a trial without permission from the Court. As Wecht’s lawyer doesn’t raise that issue, it would seem likely the court granted permission. Different courts have different standards for when they will allow contact — ranging from prima facie evidence of juror misconduct which a party seeks to further investigate to just educational curiousity.
Using the FBI and requesting home visits (calling to request is better than simply showing up at the door unannounced) does strike me as unusual and heavy-handed but I think it is a huge stretch to come up with some political conspiracy orchestrated from Washington.
It would seem better practice, in terms of putting the jurors at ease and leading them to be forthcoming to have someone from the U.S. Attorney’s office conduct any interviews (although maybe not the attorney who tried the cas because, possibly, part of a juror’s problem was that he did not like, trust or respect that attorney and the juror might be reluctant to say that to the trial attorney’s face.
On the other hand, the U.S. attorney might liken it to if a defernse lawyer obtained permission to interview jurors and sent a PI.
Dennis - SGMM
With respect, I just re-read the thread here and I believe that most of us feel that this was just another case of another incompetent Good Bushie acting in the same ham-handed, thoughtless way as the Fearless Leader.
The Other Steve
This is clearly Bill Clinton’s fault.
mac
Never mind the FBI. That kind of “use of government property” usually just shows up as campaign dirt, not as a federal case. (Like calls on White House phones for campaign contributions, or letting big contributors sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. Or using the company printers to make birthday invitations….)
It was barely a misdemeanor, and the appropriate action is a bill for reimbursement, with possible termination if she’s not an elected official. And use it as dirt in the next election campaign.
The Other Steve
I don’t understand your outrage with regards to questioning jurors.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Tsulagi
Good to see a federal prosecutor and card carrying member of the party of limited central government and individual rights seeing no problem with FBI agents calling at jurors’ homes. They see the big picture.
Federal prosecutors like this U.S. Attorney appointed by the Party of Bush administration should simplify and expedite the process. Create Freedom Forms to be filled out by prospective federal jurors. Include a release that in signing the Freedom Form you waive any objections to FBI questioning at your home or work if you come to a decision not pleasing to the prosecution.
Would probably cut down on the number and cost of retrials. Another byproduct of success just waiting to be pinched off.
The Other Steve
Yeah, when i worked at the library one of our staff billed $4,000 in phone calls to 1-976-good-sex or something like that. They didn’t even fire him, just worked out a payment plan.
Zifnab
Huge stretch? Really? They launched a half-million dollar investigation over a fax machine. This is the Clinton-gate game all over again, but with the GOP running the DoJ. It absolutely stinks of conspiracy.
Same with the Spitzer scandal, where a Governor got busted when the FBI just happened to be pawing through all his finance records. Same with the Seigelman scandal, when a sitting Governor was convicted of giving to charity.
The question isn’t whether this was a Republican hit-job, its whether this Republican hit-job goes all the way back to the White House or whether it was spawned by local party hacks.
Dennis - SGMM
“I got blisters on my fingers!”
Xenos
Astonishing when you realize that Wecht is represented by Dick Thornburgh. Do these guys in the DOJ think they can get away with intimidating jurors when opposite a former US Attorney General?
Hey, I wonder if Dick T. would be free to be a special prosecutor for cleaning out the DOJ next January? I could just hear the COP Senators stretching for a justification to block his appointment…
w vincentz
Oh NO! Say it ain’t so!
This couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080410/interrogation-tactics/
What me worry? What “war crimes”?
Can I get a commutation just like Scooter?
Where is the Hague? Are there any good waffles there?
dbrown
This is heavy-handed intimidation – period. If what ParagonPark said had a shread of truth, the FBI would be quick to explain itself so that future juries for this case would not have any reason to doubt if the FBI is trying to get jury members that aren’t supporting the government’s permission. Only if they were investigating a real criminal reson would they not say what they were doing – the odds of that just happening to a jury under these confitions are huge. This the FBI acting like the assholes that they were under ass fucked homo-boy hoover.
sparky
certainly heavy-handed. dumb, too, if this was a variant of the “let’s find out why we goofed at trial” scenario.
it is possible that there was some allegation of some kind of no-no with respect to the jury or its deliberations. in that case there would be reason to send investigative types. but since no one has said anything about this, i will assume dumb. goes with the ham-handedness of the Bush-approved USAs.
Michael Gass
As a former law enforcement officer, I can tell you that is NOT commonplace. EVER.
This is rank intimidation of juror’s, so that the NEXT jury selected KNOWS this could happen and influence their forthcoming decision.
It’s utterly appalling…
w vincentz
dbrown,
At least Hoover had the decency to call Corretta and let her know what her husband was up to, (of course, let’s disregard the illegal wiretapping and all the other bull shit). Do you think Herbie was wearing a dress when he made the call?
Umm, er, wasn’t the “standard” for FBI actions set long ago and current actions only reflective of same?
Think, Gestapo. YUP!
Egilsson
This is clearly evidence that the AG scandal at the DOJ ISN’T OVER.
This crap is STILL GOING ON.
Absolutely amazing.
Michael Gass
And in response to ParagonPark… it is one thing for a prosecutor’s office to schedule, with court approval, an interview with a juror and send a deputy DA to talk to them… it is quite another for an FBI AGENT to show up to the juror’s house.
The difference is a prosecutor may well want to know what to focus on for the next trial… whereas law enforcement has already done their job.
Rank intimidation announced for the next jury… nothing more…
cbear
I do.
We live in a banana republic ruled by monkeys.
cbear
P.S.
With apoligies to actual monkeys.
w vincentz
Yes, still going on.
No commenting regarding “torture planning” in the Situation Room, how come?
ParagonPark
Dennis:
I didn’t mean to imply every commenter is suggesting a conspiracy just that those who are seem to be making a stretch.
For some context, Cyril Wecht (a male, btw) is a very well known pathologist (he was part of the JFK assassination investigation to give an idea as how long he has been around).
During the time he served as coroner he also maintained a private practice as an expert witness/forensic consultant. It was in athat connection that he was accused of using government property for private financial gain. I won’t state an opinion as to the validity of the allegations or the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the United States Attorney in bringing federal criminal charges, but let’s not be muisled into this was similar to a guy making a few personal phone calls from the office.
cbear
er, apologies
The Other Steve
Interesting. Before being AG under Bush the Greater, he was Governor of Pennsylvania for like 10 years.
Talk about hiring a heavy weight.
w vincentz
cbear,
Us monkeys don’t notice anything as trivial as spelling.
Schit, giv yurselph a brake!
The Other Steve
If Thornburgh is involved, does that mean the fault goes beyond Bill Clinton?
Is it Reagan/Bush’s fault?
Dennis - SGMM
My response was inappropriate. I should have said that every questionable things that these people do is not necessarily orchestrated from the top. There are plenty of appointees who will do mischief on their own because they know that’s what’s expected of them and that they’ll receive cover for doing so.
As for the use of government property for personal gain, I’m surprised that any member of the current administration would want to go there.
Steve V
Agree with those who said it seems to be unusual. On the civil side, which I know, it’s very common (in my jurisdiction at least) for lawyers from the trial team to interview jurors after their service has concluded. Since the FBI isn’t part of civil practice, I don’t know about that aspect but it just seems that professionalism dictates that if the jurors are to be interviewed, it should be done by one of the lawyers on the trial team.
4tehlulz
>>Is it Reagan/Bush’s fault?
It’s Bush the Elder’s fault. If he wasn’t such a pussy and pushed onto Baghdad in 1991, this would never have happened.
Dennis - SGMM
Not only that, the press would have salivated over “the popular wartime president.” He would have had that second term.
On the down side, we’d still be hearing that in six more months the situation in Iraq will improve.
jake
So, we’re supposed to believe the Feeb is just the government’s errand boy. Not only are they doing a little moonlighting for the military but they’re secretaries for the DOJ.
Of course. The DOJ in Philly is just two guys in a narrow room and they’re too busy to pick up the phone and make a call.
Yeah. Right.
kwAwk
Michael Gass Says:
As a former law enforcement officer, I can tell you that is NOT commonplace. EVER.
This is rank intimidation of juror’s, so that the NEXT jury selected KNOWS this could happen and influence their forthcoming decision.
________________
It only works as intimidation if the next jury actually knows the first jury was visited, and really how would the second jury ever find out?
What this is really about in my opinion is that people are less likely to turn down an FBI interview, question as some have here if they even have the right to turn it down.
w vincentz
OT- At least I’ve found the answer to Johnny McSame’s alleged “anger issues”.
You’ll have to scroll down to Tues the 8th.
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!
Vlad
As a Pittsburgher, it’s utterly bizarre to me that someone would want to go to the trouble to undermine poor old Cyril Wecht. Among other things, he was the “forensic expert” on that old FOX Alien Autopsy: (Fact or Fiction?) special.
Punchy
If that retrial ends in an acquittal, I’m betting the jurors get waterboarded. Natch.
Dork
This is absolutely devestating news for Democrats.
w vincentz
OT- Now even the Fucking Pope is snubbing a dinner at the White House where he was supposed to be the guest of honor.
Sure, Benedict was in Hitler’s Youth, but that was long, long ago.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-BMdyBE1OTgcAGkicARRoO_-kSQD8VVS2O00
What does the guy that was named after deliciously prepared eggs know about the Chimp-in-chief that causes this DIS?
Holy sky-diving Jesus with a defunct ripcord!
Zifnab
As has been stated oh-so-many times, it’s worth noting that Bush is no Hitler.
mario
ha ha!
I think it’s funny how John dug up some old story from East Germany and replaced the word Stasi with FBI.
HAHAHAHAHA
hAHAHAHA
HAHA
ha?
Pavlov's Dog
Duh. Hitler had a mustache.
w vincentz
Zifnab,
That completely explains it. Ol’ Bennie has absolutely no fuckin’ to revisit those terrible times of his past, especially with regard to great grandaddy Prescott’s affiliations, and all that shit.
Yup, the chimp is no Hitler. Yet another failure.
He tries SO hard!
At least he proved to his daddy that he could take Baghdad and keep it.
BTW, how do we get rid of it?
w vincentz
correction:
After fuckin’ insert ^ “reason”.
cbear
Yeah, Adolph had none of the advantages given to George, and had to actually work to achieve his level of banality and evil.
w vincentz
OT- Looks like Conyers is making a smart move.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/conyers_invites_ashcroft_tenet.php
Emma Anne
What strikes me is that lying to the FBI is a crime. So if you remember deliberations differently than some other juror, you are in legal jeopardy.
I was on a hung jury once, and the prosecutor talked to a few of us in the hall afterward. As I recall, he asked what worked and what didn’t in his case. Not intimidating. An FBI agent coming to my house? Intimidating.
Zifnab
It’s worth noting that the H-man actually served in the military, too, and didn’t just pussy out in some German version of the Alabama National Guard.
w vincentz
OT- the long awaited “smoking gun”, in his own words.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4635175&page=1
Let the War Crimes trials begin! Fuck impeachment…it’s off the table doncha know?
Reverend Spooner
No, this is a bit more like the defense lawyer sending some mobsters to your house. The FBI’s using the same tactics as the Mafia here.
Say, if we have a Witness Protection Program to protect informants from organized crime, can we have a new program to protect jurors and other potential targets from the FBI? If I’m ever a juror in a trial like this, the last thing I want is a bunch of well-dressed thugs with guns coming over to my house when it’s all over to ask me why I was so confused back in the courthouse.
LiberalTarian
So, you think we’ll ever prosecute the bastards? Huh?? They’ve done a pretty ham handed job of subverting the government (formerly known as treason), so their behavior is readily observable, documentable, and prosecutable.
So, how come we aren’t counting the broken laws and bringing them to justice???
You know, the rule of law works when people abide by the social contract. If the rule of law isn’t applicable to the big fish, only coercion and tyranny will keep the little fish in line.
martianchronic
I normally just lurk, but I’m delurking to point out: It was 24 faxes, sent over 4 years. I think the defense estimated cost to the county at a grand total of $3.96. The $1000 number comes from airline tickets and limo rides Wecht was accused of charging for but not taking thus defrauding his clients, not the taxpayers, and some gas mileage costs for district attorneys from other counties.
24 faxes — charges 1-24 are for wire fraud. Fraud because Wecht is accused of doing personal business on county time, thus defrauding the taxpayers. Counts 28-36 are also wire and mail fraud for the alleged false reimbursement claims totaling $1,111.19, if I’m adding right.
I am not a lawyer, but this case reeks. Pittsburgh Channel 4 did a blog of the closing arguments. I will say that the prosecuter does a good job making Wecht sound like a major criminal but, after reading the closing defense case, I can see why the jury hung. By the time the defense attorney’s done taking apart the prosecution case there just really seems to be no there there at all.
I know somebody who should probably be in jail for the good of society. They keep bouncing her out faster than Paris Hilton. Maybe if I kindly offered to help her with her voter registration and signed her up as a Dem… ?
TenguPhule
If Bush had been running Nazi Germany, they’d be speaking Swedish today.
Nancy Irving
If you decline to be interviewed, what happens? They open an FBI file on you, put you on the no-fly list…?
ParagonPark
Again, I think it was a counter-productive move to have the FBI call the jurors. Regardless of the intent (which it takes a apretty shiny hat to see as anything more than information about why the jury hung and waht the vote was), the fact a couple of the jurors felt intimidated and went to the papers is harmful to the government.
It’s only when peole begin conjuring all sorts of nefarious motives and misrepresenting what happened that I point out the stretch. Read the article asn you will see that the FBI did not show up on doorsteps; agents called and asked to interview jurors. The jurors had already been informed they didn’t have to talk to anyone (and it seems encouraged not to talk by the judge) so perhaps the agents were too aggressive in attempts to persuade.
I fully agree it would have been a lot smarter to have someone from the U.S. Attorney’s office make the contacts. Not doing the smarter thing is hardly uncharacteristic of any branch of government, at any level, under any political party. Attempts to portray this as some sort of police state tyranny worthy of outrage just sounds like paranoid ranting– especially when the government actually does do so many things that are worthy of outrage.
Perspective is a good thing. When you go off the deep end about something that simply is not a big deal, people will be less likely to take you serously when you have a point about something that is.
Loviatar sock puppeting for "F"
.
ParagonPark,
Under normal circumstances you would be correct, however these are not normal circumstances within the DOJ (torture memos, US Attorneys firings, Siegleman prosecution, Spitzer investigation, etc.). Your willful refusal to acknowledge this shows you are not making an honest case, you are instead trying obsticate the case by saying that anyone who imagines this is political prosecution is guilty of conspiracy theories.
After 7+ years of Bush administration justice, I for one am wearing my shiny tinfoil hat everytime I hear any case coming out of DOJ where the suspect is a Democrat.
ParagonPark
The torture justification polices are an outrage and everyone should be outraged about them.
My point is one big reason the outrage about that is less than it should be is the extremely misguided approach that would lump that in with the termination of will and pleasure appointees, and the prosecution/investigation of obviously slimy politicians.