Ghislaine Maxwell request for new trial denied

I thought we had a thread discussing this, but I didn’t find it searching for “Ghislaine” or “Maxwell”. This still seems very wrong to me, even though I expect she would correctly be found guilty at a new trial. One relevant factor, from the article, is that several other jurors acknowledge some history of sexual abuse and were not stricken, so it’s quite possible this juror would still have continued had he properly disclosed his history.

When I have jury duty, I don’t say anything to anyone that isn’t required of me. Of course, I don’t lie on questionnaires, either.

:iatp:

It is her lawyer’s fault if the question wasn’t directly asked and they think it is important. It is not the juror’s responsibility to offer up information the defendant might think is important.

If it was directly asked and he lied, then I could see there being cause for a mistrial.

1 Like

I think this was the case. The question about whether the juror had suffered sexual abuse was answered incorrectly. Then it became a discussion point in the deliberations that the juror used to put context around victim’s(’?) testimony. Given those facts, I am somewhat surprised that the judge didn’t grant a mistrial, but I didn’t read the judge’s reasoning for denying it.

:iatp: It was asked on the questionnaire that all jurors had to complete, and he answered incorrectly,. (Potentially if he had answered correctly, he would have been asked additional verbal questions, or would just have been excluded from the jury. One observation that the judge ruling on this matter made: other prospective jurors had answered correctly that they had suffered sexual abuse and were not excluded, so perhaps this wrong answer was irrelevant.)

Thanks. I was wondering about that. It seems bonkers to allow the systemic exclusion of people who had been sexually abused, but it seems that wasn’t the case.

tangent - my son was on jury duty and the trial was going to be awful. he found the questions asked openly and publicly to be 1000% insensitive.
“Have you ever been the victim of physical or sexual abuse?” Answers provided verbally in front of everyone.
“Has one of your family members been murdered?” One guy says “my cousin was one of dahmer’s victims.” (free to go now…)

The case was a child care worker charged with beating death of a 1 or 2 yo. was a big case locally. fortunately for him, change of plea avoided trial.

But, agree with the points above - you have to answer the questions honestly.

You could probably be difficult and say “I don’t want to talk about that.” I don’t know what threshold a juror would have to cross to be found in contempt, but I imagine they might be able to get disqualified without being found in contempt for refusing to answer questions on a sensitive subject.

I once sat for jury selection on a trial that was expected to go 6-8 weeks and the jury would be sequestered. [t was a retrial; the 2nd trial ended up going ~5 months, and then the verdict thrown out on appeal because of an incredibly inane reason. No idea if they did another trial beyond that.] There was one guy who was very vocal in his complaints about having to be there and that he wouldn’t serve on the jury for it. As the jury was being polled generally - do you know anything about this case, do you know ____ who may testify at trial, what are your feelings on ______ - who answered “yes” on everything. I mean, everything. Questions would be asked in opposite directions, he’d answer yes to both. Did that through about 60 questions.

Needless to say, he didn’t get picked. The berating he took from the judge in her chambers as he was questioned on his responses was audible throughout the courthouse. Inexplicably, he wasn’t found in contempt.

Bump for Epstein’s list of blackmailed (I assume, cuz there’s money and power in it) friends being released today.
Maybe we can have an Epstein’s List Pool?

It makes me a bit uncomfortable that these names are being released and, as the article says, being on the list does not mean wrongdoing.

It seems like this isn’t an extraordinary situation in a vacuum, so if that’s a normal legal thing, I get it.

But in this case the media and public discourse has blown it up to the point of worthlessness, unless we get other evidence that clearly says “Flew XYZ to my condo where we had sex with minors”.

Bill Clinton’s on the list so he’s a pedophile. Trump is on it so he’s a pedophile. A giant list of celebrities will be on it, and you know, I bet some of them are pedophiles, and a lot of people are going to have their lives made very difficult because of somebody they networked with a couple of times.

(For the record, I find it plausible though not obvious that Trump could be a pedophile. He is quoted bragging about being allowed to walk into the changing rooms of girls as young as 15 while they’re undressed and called them incredible-looking, and said he can get away with it.)

And there is this issue:

Preska has granted a 30-day extension barring the disclosure of two names, including a woman identified as Doe 107 to review her claim that she faces a risk of physical harm in her home country if her identity is publicly revealed.

Doing wrong things is not right, but we’ll let you keep doing wrong things (I mean, what else would she conclude?) because exposing you might bring physical harm to you?
Meanwhile elsewhere, people are being threatened with physical harm for doing the right things?

(Now, as long as I’m not on this list…)
Also, Moron, er, Aaron Rodgers trying to be funny. Don’t quit your day job of sitting around nursing your “injury” if that’s what it really is. I mean, you know what’s easier playing football and getting paid millions of dollars? Not playing and getting paid millions of dollars. Occam’s razor, folks.

On Tuesday, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, during an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” said in regards to the list of names, “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel are really hoping that doesn’t come out.”

“I’ll tell you what, if that list comes out, I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle,” Rodgers said.

Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “The Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show, quickly fired back at Rodgers in a tweet on the social media site X, suggesting he would sue the football player if he persisted in implying Kimmel had a connection with Epstein.

“Dear Asshole: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality,” Kimmel wrote in the tweet.

“Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”

McAfee apologized Wednesday on his show “for being part of” Rodgers’ comments.

“I can understand why Jimmy got incredibly upset, yeah, I definitely completely understand that, especially with his position, but also I think Aaron is like, ‘hey, this guy has said some stuff about me in his monologue’ and he’s just trying to s— talk,” McAfee said. “I don’t think he meant anything else, but he’s gonna have to clarify that for us.”

Waah, Jimmy made fun of me!!
I fully expect Aaron Rodgers to double-down on his remarks.

It was “Dear Aasshole”, actually.

2 Likes

Nice!

So, checking out all the “McAfee said this today, you should watch!” shit on the ESPN site, and Aaron doesn’t show up anywhere. Hmm. Kimmel does work for the same company that owns ESPN, so, maybe he has some pull. Or his lawyers do.

McAfee claims people within ESPN are trying to sabotage his show. Apparently dislike of defamation claims on the network makes one a hater.

https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1743373603968889074?t=OVokn8VSdiwUl3QVNfhESg&s=19

Maybe he could go find a safe space. Maybe back to Barstool Sports or something.

More specifically I believe Norby Williamson is the guy attempting to sabotage our program."

Um, by letting you stay on the air and hang yourself? I agree with you: he should prevent you from going on the air.
Also, had to look up this Norby guy. I think he can easily just take you off the air just because of your catchphrase or beard (wiki = friend), so, not sure why you want to wind his clock.

Or, maybe Norby needs a little fear at his house. Not saying anyone should do anything bad or illegal…