STF NA MÍDIA

More than 630,000 letters
pleading for a stay of execution
were delivered to the
Georgia board last week.
Those asking for clemency
included President Jimmy
Carter, 51 members of Congress
and death penalty supporters,
such as William Sessions,
a former F.B.I. director.
The board’s failure to
commute Mr. Davis’s death
sentence to life without parole
was a tragic miscarriage of
justice.
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • NEW YORK • 20/9/2011
Unusual Question to Jurors: How Do You Like the Mayor?
By JOHN ELIGON and
COLIN MOYNIHAN
One after another, they stitched
together a collage of
thoughts about Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg, responding
as to whether they had
formed opinions about him.
“Some good, some bad,” one
woman said.
“The third term I was bothered
by,” a man said.
“Doing a good job,” a different
man said. “I like him.”
“I don’t particularly like
what he is doing with the
Board of Education,” offered
another man, who added,
however, that he was a fan of
the mayor’s bike lanes.
This impromptu focus group
on Tuesday was convened in
a rather unlikely place: a jury
box.
Even from the early stage of
jury selection, the trial of
John F. Haggerty Jr., a Republican
political consultant
accused of stealing over $1
million from Mr. Bloomberg,
is offering a political backdrop
not typically found in
criminal trials.
With Mr. Bloomberg cast in
the role of victim in this case
and with the mayor expected
to take the witness stand,
how prospective jurors perceive
him could be a factor in
whether they are chosen for
the trial.
Did they think, one of Mr.
Haggerty’s lawyers asked,
that it was possible that Mr.
Bloomberg would lie on the
witness stand?
“I tend to assume everyone is
telling the truth,” said a Midtown
resident who has lived
in New York for six years.
The lawyer, Raymond R.
Castello, asked if she would
be willing to consider that
the mayor might not tell the
truth.
“I guess I have to be,” she
responded.
After further pressing, the
woman said she was open to
the possibility. Ultimately,
she was not selected as a
juror.
Prosecutors will be asking
the jury to agree with their
conclusion that Mr. Haggerty,
42, stole from Mr.
Bloomberg by making false
representations that induced
the mayor to donate $1.1
million to the Independence
Party during his re-election
bid in 2009. Mr. Haggerty
promised to use the money to
provide ballot security, prosecutors
said, even though he
had no intention of doing so.
But the defense has argued
that Mr. Bloomberg had no
legal control of the money
once he donated it to the
party and that it could be
used for whatever the party
chose. Mr. Bloomberg knew
that he would lose control
over the money by donating
it, defense lawyers said, and
he did not rely on Mr. Haggerty’s
promise of ballot security
when he made the contribution.
While prosecutors have tried
to limit some of the issues
the defense can raise during
the trial, Mr. Haggerty’s
lawyers have indicated that
they plan to explore some of
Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign
spending habits.
On Tuesday, Justice Ronald
A. Zweibel, who is presiding
over the case in State Supreme
Court in Manhattan,
first asked the large pool of
prospective jurors if any of
them had particularly strong
feelings about the mayor.
Those who did were dismissed
after speaking to Justice
Zweibel and the lawyers in
private.
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