As we reported Friday, a jury in the Magnolia State’s money-for-judges trial acquitted state supreme court justice Oliver Diaz Jr. of all charges, rendered not guilty verdicts on some of the charges against two of the three other defendants, and was unable to agree on verdicts in the other cases. Now Howard Bashman (Aug. 14) rounds up links to the extensive coverage of the case published in recent days in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger and Biloxi Sun-Herald.
More: According to the Sun-Herald account, after agreeing on acquitting Diaz, nine jurors wanted to convict the other defendants of some charges, but three jurors insisted on across-the-board acquittals and would not budge from that position. “What’s wrong with helping a judge?” said juror Shirley Griffin, 64. “They were all friends. It was (Paul Minor’s) money, not the government’s money. It’s his business what he does with it. (Minor) has done a lot of good things. I don’t know him but I know of him, and he’s done a lot of good. And his daddy used to have articles in the paper.” Griffin described the holdouts against conviction as “me and the two white people”, which might be considered an unexpected pattern given that, as the Sun-Herald reported, “The defense team played to a jury of 10 blacks and two whites, frequently bringing up the defendants’ support for civil rights.” And the Clarion-Ledger reports: “The U.S. attorney’s office is uncertain it will retry Minor, former Circuit Judge John Whitfield and former Chancery Judge Wes Teel on charges the jury didn’t reach a verdict on.”
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