Life In Our Growing Police State

Question for the day: Why can't people perceive how Our Leaders are completely deliberately destroying this country?

The FBI is used to investigate why a partisan kangaroo trial failed:

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."

Both men requested not to be identified.

The FBI agents simply set up appointments for federal prosecutors, said Margaret Philbin, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

"It is commonplace for the prosecuting attorneys and the investigating agency, in this case the FBI, to participate in the post-verdict discussion with the jurors," Philbin said in a statement. "Often that occurs before the jury leaves the courthouse. In this case the jury was excused before the attorneys and agents had an opportunity to speak with the members."

Prosecutors today must tell a federal judge which of 41 counts of fraud and theft they intend to pursue in a second trial of Wecht, who was accused of misusing his public office for personal gain. Jurors deliberated for 10 days and told U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab on the 11th day they were deadlocked.

Special Agent Bill Crowley, a spokesman for the FBI's Pittsburgh office, and representatives at the bureau's Washington headquarters and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

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."

Hung juries and mistrials are rare in the federal court system. Last year, there were only 59 trials that didn't end with a conviction or acquittal nationwide, according to the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts in Washington.

After declaring a mistrial on Tuesday, Schwab strongly urged the jurors to refrain from talking about Wecht's case with reporters or lawyers from either side and then ushered them into his chambers. Schwab released the jury before prosecutors or Wecht's lawyers could interview them.

Prosecutors immediately moved for a retrial, which Schwab scheduled for May 27.

A former federal prosecutor, Thomas Farrell, who was not involved in the case, said using FBI agents to contact jurors wasn't routine but in this case likely stems from prosecutors not getting a chance to talk with jurors on the day the trial ended.

"It is unusual, but in this case it might be the logistics," said Farrell. He said the U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't have a large support staff.

The jury foreman said he wished prosecutors had talked with jurors before deciding to retry Wecht.

"That puzzled me," said the foreman, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of Schwab's request. "I was surprised at how quickly the government wanted to retry him, because they didn't seem to realize where we were as a jury when the case ended. I thought they would've at least polled us to see how close the counts were.

"I would hope that the government would have our best interests at heart, but I'm concerned about the costs of another trial. For us, it was a split jury and the majority found him 'not guilty.' "

In interviews with the Tribune-Review, several jurors said they respected each other and the court, and took their duty to weigh Wecht's guilt or innocence seriously. None had served on a jury before. Some began to see the prosecution as "political," according to the foreman.

Wecht is a Democrat and Buchanan a Republican.

"When it started, I had an open mind. I didn't know Dr. Wecht other than reading the paper or watching the news. I thought, 'I'll let all the facts of the case play out.' But in the end, those thoughts crossed my mind a few times," the foreman said.

Link.

Why it's creepy (to say the least):

First, prosecutors didn't seek to poll or speak to jurors before making their determination as to whether to retry the case. If they had, the jurors would have said that most of them were ready to vote to acquit. "That seemed to us to be vindictive," Dick Thornburgh, the former attorney general under President George H.W. Bush and a lawyer for Wecht, told me. "It's how [the prosecutors] have behaved the whole case." The jury foreman has even said that the prosecution seemed "politically driven." (See our rundowns of the case here and here.)

And second, using the FBI to contact jurors is far from commonplace (Jerry McDevitt, another of Wecht's attorneys, told me that the agent who'd contacted the jurors was not even the agent who had worked on the Wecht case). Thornburgh told me that it was "unprecedented" in his experience. A former federal prosecutor told the Tribune-Review that it was unusual. And a veteran defense attorney from the Pittsburgh area told the paper that he'd never heard of such a thing. And there's a reason:

"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," [the attorney] said. "I would think that's very bothersome to have that happen."

Link.

More:

We'd be interested in hearing from readers with prosecutorial backgrounds on this one.

[T]here was a hung jury this week in the trial of former Pittsburgh-area coroner Cyril Wecht. Because of a number of peculiarities, the case has been one of those DOJ prosecutions suspected of being politically motivated.

The government immediately declared it would retry the case, but in the meantime the FBI has been contacting jurors asking about their deliberations.

Now it's not unusual for prosecutors to try to meet with jurors after the fact. Indeed, sometimes those meetings help determine whether a retrial is viable. But dispatching the FBI to arrange these meetings?

I've never heard of such a thing, and former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, who is representing Wecht, tells TPMmuckraker that it's "unprecedented" in his experience.

So what about it? Is this standard operating procedure in U.S. Attorney offices?

Late Update: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) issued the following statement this afternoon:

I am deeply troubled by reports of FBI agents contacting former jurors who failed to convict Dr. Wecht. Whether reckless or intended, it is simply common sense that such contacts can have a chilling effect on future juries in this and other cases. When added to the troubling conduct of this prosecution, there is the appearance of a win at all costs mentality. The committee continues to investigate this matter.

Link.