Too Much Information a Problem in Jury Cases

Trials & Litigation

Too Much Information a Problem in Jury Cases

Posted Nov 6, 2008, 11:14 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Prosecutors supplying too much information at trial risk confusing jurors and losing their cases.

The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) examined the problem and presented some examples involving the unrelated prosecutions of a charity accused of helping terrorists and an executive accused of securities fraud.

It took prosecutors three tries to win a conviction against Walter Forbes, the former chairman of New Jersey travel and real-estate company Cendant Corp., the story says.

The first trial for conspiracy to commit securities fraud lasted seven months and ended with a hung jury. The evidence was pared down for the second trial, but it also ended in a hung jury. The third trial lasted a streamlined 10 days and Forbes was convicted, the story says.

Many observers told the Wall Street Journal that the complicated case against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, accused of funneling money to terrorists, also suffered from information overload. Jurors buried under “an avalanche of evidence” deadlocked on many of the 197 counts in the first trial.

Prosecutors appear to have changed their tack in the second trial, the story says. They have dropped some charges, shortened their presentation and added posters and PowerPoint slides.

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