Wednesday, August 22, 2018
The Manafort Conviction
Yesterday, two high-profile convictions came down: Michael Cohen (by plea) and Paul Manafort (by a jury). One question I have been getting regards the Manafort outcome. It turns out that the jury convicted him on 8 charges, and were unable to reach a verdict on the other 10. Here are a few quick observations:
1) Having a hung jury on many counts is not unusual. Because it only takes one juror to create a hung jury, this happens fairly often. It is especially common in more complex cases, where sometimes that holdout juror is hung up on a fact the others are not. It should be said-- sometimes that holdout juror is right, too.
2) The prosecutors can have re-trial on those counts that did not result in a verdict. That happens, sometimes, but other times it does not, either because a deal is worked out or the prosecutors decide it isn't worth it. Once in a while, they realize the holdout was right...
3) At sentencing in federal court, it might not matter that there was not a conviction on those counts. Under the Sentencing Guidelines's doctrine of "relevant conduct," if the judge finds by a probability that the defendant did those things, and it is deemed sufficiently related to the count of conviction, they can become part of the sentencing guidelines calculation.
1) Having a hung jury on many counts is not unusual. Because it only takes one juror to create a hung jury, this happens fairly often. It is especially common in more complex cases, where sometimes that holdout juror is hung up on a fact the others are not. It should be said-- sometimes that holdout juror is right, too.
2) The prosecutors can have re-trial on those counts that did not result in a verdict. That happens, sometimes, but other times it does not, either because a deal is worked out or the prosecutors decide it isn't worth it. Once in a while, they realize the holdout was right...
3) At sentencing in federal court, it might not matter that there was not a conviction on those counts. Under the Sentencing Guidelines's doctrine of "relevant conduct," if the judge finds by a probability that the defendant did those things, and it is deemed sufficiently related to the count of conviction, they can become part of the sentencing guidelines calculation.
