A Black man on a jury allegedly wanted to find the defendant guilty because he was "rich and white". This illustrates the level of racial and class tensions that exist in the U.S. And also how members on a jury can sometimes be prone to making their decisions using emotion rather than rational logic. The case the jury was on had nothing even to do with race. So one can only imagine how much bias and emotion could factor in in cases where race is actually an element. A trial threatened to descend into chaos after 12 jurors clashed over race and class while weighing charges against a wealthy developer and two others accused of arranging $1.3 billion in phony tax deductions. One Black man, Juror 44, allegedly said the defendants deserved to go to jail "because they are rich, White and entitled." A White female, Juror 26, told the judge that she's "a White person standing up for White people." The judge had to repeatedly intervene, telling the panel at one point not to say "f--- you" to one another. Race played no obvious role in the trial, where prosecutors accused the developer, Jack Fisher, and two others of selling fraudulent tax shelters through complex deals known as syndicated conservation easements. They are intended to preserve green space, but prosecutors allege Fisher used them to defraud the US and enrich himself. At least 28,000 taxpayers who claimed $21 billion in deductions in those types of deals have been audited. Fisher, an accountant-turned-developer, is on trial with James Sinnott, an attorney who worked with him, and Clayton Weibel, an appraiser. Prosecutors allege Fisher earned about $60 million by offering wealthy clients investments in land easements that bar development, which were used to generate tax breaks based on “grossly inflated” land appraisals. US District Judge Timothy Batten sought to resolve the matter Tuesday when he denied a US request to remove Jurors 26 or 44. He ruled he could only do so during deliberations if he concluded that "no substantial possibility exists" that a juror based their verdict on "sufficiency of the evidence." The deliberations had deteriorated into acrimony and the jury told the judge they were "hopelessly hung", according to a filing. The judge told lawyers that he was walking by the jury room and a juror told him "there are two to three people who will not change their mind," the filing said. If there is no unanimous verdict and the judge concludes the jury is deadlocked, he could declare a mistrial. That would force prosecutors to decide whether to seek a retrial. A $1.3 Billion Tax Trial Sparks Juror Anger and Curses Over Race, David Voreacos, Bloomberg, 9/20/2023 I think part of this has to do with the recent "Black Lives Matter" phenomena and the media whipping up racial issues for political purposes, which has riled up many in the Black community. There are plenty of charged emotions wafting about. In an ideal world, race should have nothing to do any trial, and it shouldn't matter whether jurors are white or black. But an ideal world is not the real world. It makes one question if justice is truly going to be carried out if jurors can be so racially biased and emotional. Unfortunately there are a lot of people in society, called to serve on a jury, who simply may not have the mental temperament to be able to properly understand a case with many complex tedious details, and be able to apply logic.
Oh but this can't be true because we're told the black people can't be racist... Never mind the fact that so many of them obviously are and raise their children to view the white man as the enemy. And the Democrat party helps to Foster that mentality
In other words the judge decided not to restart the trial all over again. There was the option to replace one or two of those members of the jury, but the judge decided not to do it. In that type of situation it is an option for the judge to replace the problematic juror (or jurors) if the judge decides that juror is not going to be base their decision on sufficient evidence. Something like what happened in this story could have given the judge grounds to replace those two jurors. But judges are usually pretty reluctant to hold a retrial due to all the time and resources that would waste.
I wonder if there were alternates available, they could have swapped in sure the defendant loves this, as if guilty and is found guilty, it's an easy mistrial
Usually that's not how it works. It's pretty rare for jurors to be swapped out. So what that ends up meaning is that if a juror does need to be swapped out, the trial has to be restarted and held all over again. What many people don't understand is that judges normally don't like holding trials, they do not find it preferable most of the time. This is especially so when it comes to retrials. And part of this is rightly so, since a trial uses a big amount of time, resources, and money.
This is one of the reasons I dislike jury trials. The other is that few people like being chosen for jury duty.
These remarks by both jurors absolutely sound like grounds for a mistrial. This is also a good reason why alternate jurors should be required to sit through the whole trial so they can be easily swapped in if a juror becomes sick or dies or if they show that they are not fit to serve, like these two jurors did.
It was probably already halfway through and the judge may have figured with two people on opposite sides fighting, the worst that could happen is a hung jury, in which case they would have to hold the trial over again, the same as if the judge had declared a mistrial. If I had been the judge, I would have declined to declare a mistrial too. Holding a trial takes up a lot of everyone's time, so I would have tried to make it work. Many people may not realize this, but (with the exception of very serious cases like murder, or very unusual cases) judges and prosecutors usually try to do everything they can to prevent there from being a trial in the first place, and that's all the more true when it comes to holding a new trial after the trial is already underway. It takes up a lot of the government and court's limited resources to hold a trial.
