Inside the Libby jury room

A juror’s first-hand account.

Huffington Post has a gripping blow-by-blow account of the jury deliberations in the Libby case, written by one of the jurors who is also a professional writer.

The jury’s reasoning is clear: it simply isn’t reasonable to imagine that Libby could genuinely have remembered being “surprised” when someone told him something that at least four other people had already told him.

The writer makes it sound as if the jury was serious and collegial in its approach to the case. They took no straw vote until they had spent a week discussing each witness’s testimony. Cutest psychological maneuver: When the original vote on Count 1 came down 9-2 for conviction, the majority didn’t try to persuade the minority. Instead they asked the minority to try to persuade them. Unanimity quickly followed.

Fortunately, the wingnuts don’t read HuffPo and the mainstream media tend to ignore what’s on it (by contrast with whatever sludge Matt Drudge decides to post). Otherwise, you’d hear loud “bangs” as wingnut heads exploded at a set of facts completely inconsistent with the fantasies they’ve been fed.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com