Jury Deadlocks in Tim Cahill Case, Forcing a Mistrial
Seven days after they began deliberating, and one day after they found his co-defendant not guilty of several charges, a jury was unable to settle on a verdict for former State Treasurer Tim Cahill on the allegations that he conspired to use lottery advertisements to boost his own run for governor, according to the tweets of several reporters in the courtroom.
Cahill celebrates. twitter.com/mlevenson/stat…
— Michael Levenson (@mlevenson) December 12, 2012
The judge has declared a mistrial which means the Attorney General’s office can try him again, or — given the length of the trial and the unfavorable outcome — not. The Globe’s Glen Johnson suggests a retrial is unlikely:
TIM CAHILL: To recap, aide Scott Campbell cleared; mistrial for Cahill himself. AG can try again, but that seems unlikely now… #mapoli — Glen Johnson (@globeglen) December 12, 2012
The zeitgeist seems to think this verdict was a big deal not only for Cahill but for Attorney General Martha Coakley, who has been accused of overreaching with the charges. Does the lack of a guilty verdict make her look silly for pursuing the case? We know at least a few Herald columnists bound to think so. “Not good news for an ambitious attorney general who took some heat for bringing the commonwealth’s case forward against Cahill, when other pols use their offices in varying degrees to bolster their image,” wrote Chris Cassidy this morning.
At any rate, with the surprisingly long deliberation concluded, some of us will miss the presence of political reporters alerting us to the status of the jury light ad infinitum.
