Reports a juror in the Roger Stone case held undisclosed political animus against President Donald Trump can be the legal impetus for a mistrial, according to Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax TV.
"I think that Stone should get a new trial," Dershowitz told Thursday's "Greg Kelly Reports." "We've now discovered that one of the jurors on the case, the foreperson on the jury, had very, very strong views – not only against Trump but in favor of [special counsel Robert] Mueller and the Mueller investigation.
"Apparently, those views were not disclosed."
These revelations might ultimately render the current Washington, D.C., controversy over the hard sentence recommendations moot, Dershowitz told host Greg Kelly.
"They might very well result in a new trial, muting the whole issue of sentencing, but that we'll have to wait and see," he concluded.
Attorney General William Barr told ABC News, President Donald Trump should stop tweeting about criminal cases, because the tweets about the Roger Stone sentence "make it impossible for me to do my job."
Ultimately, it does not matter what the president or the attorney general say about the sentence, because it is in the judiciary's hands to decide, Dershowitz said.
"It seemed like a vindictive recommendation," Dershowitz admitted of the initial 7-9 years in prison recommended for Stone, a first-time offender who is of advanced age, on the charges of lying to Congress, among others.
"Now of course, the judge has the final word, subject to appeal, for what sentence to actually impose.
"But prosecutors have an enormous amount of power when they recommend sentences."
Dershowitz reiterated his views expressed Wednesday on Newsmax TV's "Newsmax Now," where he said Stone suffered an unjust "trial penalty" because he did not plead guilty and instead sought to challenge the charges in court.
"There's something very wrong with that systemically, and I know that there's concern about that among civil libertarians and political figures as well," Dershowitz said.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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