Osama Awadallah was acquitted of perjury by the second jury to sit in judgment on him. The first jury hung, 11 in favor of conviction and 1 in favor of acquittal — and took six days to reach that conclusion. The second jury acquitted unanimously after seven hours.
Why the difference — given that the cases the prosecutors put on were virtually identical? Here’s one theory:
One major difference between the two trials was the emotional response to the Sept. 11 attacks cast on the jurors. After the first trial, at least four jurors openly acknowledged sharing stories of losses they had suffered and weeping during their deliberations, despite strict orders from the judge to keep emotions out of the proceedings.
This time, jurors said they kept those feelings out of the jury room.
Another theory:
Mr. Awadallah’s lawyer, Jesse Berman, said he believed that the three extra witnesses he used this time, including two of his client’s former teachers, had helped humanize Mr. Awadallah.
“It made jurors not have to worry that he was some loner in some sleeper cell,” Mr. Berman said.
A final theory: Bush and his administration have been repudiated by the American people and this prosecution seemed part of an incompetent effort to prosecute terrorism; jurors continued the repudiation.
I used the occasion of the first trial to argue for relaxed jury decision rules for conviction (and acquittal), a short version of my much longer argument here. What light does this one episode shed on my argument? Well, for one it looks like there is some contingency in how juries decide cases — and that politics may have something to do with why some people get convicted and some get acquitted, whether we like it or not. It also suggests, perhaps, why unanimity is favored by some. But did the second jury reach the “truth”? Who knows?
Some related links from PB and the Co-Op.
Posted by Ethan Leib on November 18, 2006 at 02:08 PM
Comments
One factor in second trials is that the lawyers have the benefit of learning what failed during the first trial. The second trial can be shaped by very subtle changes that the first jury grabbed on to.
Posted by: MR | Nov 18, 2006 4:06:44 PM
It seems obvious that juries sometimes (perhaps often- I don’t know) bring in outside factors that they ought not in deciding cases. When Mike Tyson was on trial for rape there was a fire in the building the jury was staying in. Some news people speculated that perhaps Don King was trying to intimidate them into finding for Tyson, apparently just making this up out of his imagination. Fire investigators said it was a normal problem w/ wiring and there was no sign of a human cause. In interviews after the case, though, at least two jurors said that they believed that King had the fire set on purpose to intimidate them and that “they showed him”. It seems plausible that Tyson was guilty, but it also seemed obvious right then that he hadn’t had a fair trial. In cases like that and the one above it seems plausible that judges should have more discretion to call a mis-trial and have the case heard again.
Posted by: Matt | Nov 18, 2006 3:59:20 PM