Edwards jurors doubted prosecutors' star witness

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Michael Dwyer / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES John Edwards: sin vs. crime (CP)

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Several jurors explained their deliberations in the John Edwards mistrial Friday, saying the prosecutors' star witness was not credible and the former U.S. presidential candidate never actually received money to hide his pregnant mistress from his terminally ill wife and the public.

On network talk shows, even jurors who thought Edwards was guilty on at least some of the six counts of campaign-finance fraud said the prosecution simply didn't have enough evidence. On Thursday, they acquitted Edwards on one count of accepting illegal campaign contributions and deadlocked on the other five.

"We tried to put our feelings aside, and what we were doing was just looking at the facts to come up with a verdict," juror Cindy Aquaro said on NBC's Today show.

Juror Jonathan Nunn said he thought the nearly $1 million from two donors were personal gifts, not campaign donations.

"Everybody's got their own beliefs based off of what they saw," Nunn told ABC's Good Morning America. "They stood their ground. They stood by their decision. and I respect that."

Thursday's verdict bore out criticism that prosecutors went after Edwards without evidence that justified the charges he masterminded a scheme to use the campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress while running for the White House in 2008.

"As noted by nearly every campaign finance lawyer who considered the matter, this was a lousy case," said Melanie Sloan, executive director for the campaign-finance watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "All the salacious details prosecutors offered up to prove that Edwards is, indeed, despicable, were not enough to persuade the jury to convict him."

Edwards had faced a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

To convict Edwards, prosecutors needed to show not only that the candidate knew about the secret payments, which he denied, but that he knew he was violating federal law by accepting them. But the government was unable to produce any witness who said Edwards knowingly violated the law. Even former Edwards aide Andrew Young testified Edwards told him he had consulted campaign-finance lawyers who assured him the money was legal.

A former trial lawyer, Edwards was so unimpressed with the testimony against him that when the government rested, he turned to a member of his defence team and asked dismissively, "That's their case?"

Edwards chose not to take the stand in his own defence.

"This is a case that should define the difference between a wrong and a crime... between a sin and a felony," Edwards' lead attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury during closing arguments. "John Edwards has confessed his sins. He will serve a life sentence for those."

Prosecutors are unlikely to retry the case, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the decision will undergo review in the coming days.

Steve Friedland, a former federal prosecutor who watched the case from inside the courtroom, predicted Edwards won't fare as well in the court of public opinion.

"Regardless of the decision, he still is Exhibit A for how we do not want our leaders to behave," said Friedland, now a professor at Elon University's School of Law. "This is a huge victory for him, and big burden off his shoulders, but a hollow one given his astounding fall from grace."

The Obama administration and the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section made the final decision to prosecute Edwards.

The case against Edwards was tried by three prosecutors sent down from Washington and one prosecutor from the North Carolina capital. They presented 14 days of testimony and evidence, with Young their star witness.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 2, 2012 A30