Roger Stone again asks court for new trial

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

Roger Stone has once again asked the court to grant him a new trial, according to a court order issued on Friday afternoon. This request comes a day after President Trump tweeted about the foreperson in Stone's criminal trial.

"Now it looks like the fore person in the jury, in the Roger Stone case, had significant bias," he wrote. "Add that to everything else, and this is not looking good for the 'Justice' Department."

On Tuesday, CNN reported that Tomeka Hart, who was the foreperson on Stone's jury, had said on Facebook that she wanted to "stand up" for the four prosecutors who withdrew from the case in protest. "It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice," Hart reportedly wrote.

On Tuesday, all four government prosecutors in Stone's case abruptly withdrew, with one resigning outright, after senior Justice Department officials, including Attorney General William Barr, softened the sentencing recommendation they had sent to the judge.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roger-stone-again-asks-court-for-new-trial/

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Unbelievable.

It was announced a day or two ago that Stone just hired a new lawyer who was famous for working with the mob. I'm guessing he had something to do with this.

AND..... according to tRump someone who simply commented that prosecutors performed their job with integrity is somehow biased. What a fucking crybaby.

[mr_lebowski]

1. Sweet Jesus why can't these people GO THE FUCK AWAY ...

GOD I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THESE ASSHOLES ...

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. So now acknowledging that the justice system worked is considered bias?

Trump is probably including this in his imbecilic tweets.

[wishstar]

3. Seems that Judge Berman isn't delaying sentencing despite the Stone shenanigans

Latest reporting is that she is still closing door Tuesday on defense presentations and expected to sentence him on Thursday the 20th so that's good news.

[onenote]

11. what reporting is that?

[trusty elf]

4. O Stone, be not so!

[Sherman A1]

5. I believe that doing so is

Pretty much pro forma. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

[onenote]

8. I wouldn't be so sure.

We don't know have the details of the juror's responses to the jury questionnaire and the oral voice dire. If she answered questions falsely, the judge might just grant the motion. Moreover, there is a significant risk that the government, given what Trump has said about this juror, won't oppose the new trial motion.

[Sherman A1]

9. We will see, but I'm fairly certain it is a standard request

Time will tell.

[onenote]

10. Anything but standard

Attempts to get a mistrial by arguing juror bias after the fact are not standard. Stone's lawyers tried this with respect to another juror, and Judge Jackson wrote a 15 page opinion to support her decision denying the motion. She's going to be very careful because this is something that could become an appealable issue.

[rickyhall]

6. I hope every busted felon pulls these same shenanigans over & over.

This is "justice". The poor go down, the rich get a pass. Sickening.

[turbinetree]

7. Denied.......................... your going to jail...........................

[wishstar]

12. Stone defense never objected about juror "bias" until Trump tweeted

That juror was known to be a Democrat who posted anti-Trump comments based on her racial justice concerns. Seems though that she had never commented anything positive or negative about Roger Stone, so there were no grounds for Stone defense or Judge Berman to eliminate her. She had retweeted a CNN article which addressed criticism of FBI raid of Stone but she had not commented herself on her opinion of the article or about Stone.

Since her Democratic political beliefs were known all along to be critical of Trump and as long as she abided by the rules during trial and continued to refrain from commenting about Stone, seems that there would not be basis for mistrial.

Unless something more concrete is presented about this juror's conduct, seems there is a weak case for new trial as Stone's defense knew her political views all along but never previously raised any concerns about this juror having bias against Stone.

[onenote]

13. The issue is whether she withheld information on her questionnaire

First, we don't necessarily know if the defense team objected to this particular juror in advance. My bet is that they did. Judge Jackson's fifteen page opinion denying a separate motion for a new trial based based on the defense's objection to a different juror reveals the following: The defense initially sought to strike 58 jurors from the jury pool. Judge Jackson struck over 30 of those jurors initially and subsequently struck several others. The juror at the heart of the initial motion for a new trial was not one of the jurors that the defense sought to strike. Only later, after oral void dire, did the defense move to strike that particular juror, and Judge Jackson denied that motion before the trial and denied the motion for a new trial after the trial.

If the fact that the defense had the opportunity to object to the jury forewoman was dispositive of the motion for new trial, Judge Jackson would have said so and it wouldn't have required a 15-page opinion. And as for the new motion, relating to the jury forewoman, we don't know if the defense objected either based on the written questionnaire or the oral void dire. And we don't know if she concealed any details that Judge Jackson is going to conclude the jury forewoman should have disclosed.

This isn't a slam dunk.