From the AP:
A federal jury has begun a third day of deliberations in the trial of a former University of Tennessee student accused of hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail.
The six women and six men are considering four felony charges against 22-year-old David Kernell. The jury in Knoxville deliberated about six hours Wednesday, their second day behind closed doors and resumed the process Thursday morning.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle said he is "not encouraged or discouraged" by the deliberations going into a third day.
Personally I am starting to feel a bit encouraged by the time it is taking the jury to reach their decision, but again there is no guarantee they are recognizing that this case was blown well out of proportion.
Update:
A federal jury in the third day of deliberating the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking case told the judge Thursday they are deadlocked on one charge after reaching unanimous decisions on three counts.
The deadlocked charge is identity theft.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips told the jurors they could deliberate longer or go ahead and announce the three verdicts on charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a computer and obstruction of justice.
The jury then went behind closed doors again.
Here's hoping the kid gets off on all or most of these.
If Palin hadn't used state resources (Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye) on state time to set up email accounts outside the state system so they could discuss state business, no one would have made a federal case out of a college prank.
ReplyDeleteThink of all the tax money going into this trial.
Jury has asked for statute on identity theft. I would view that as a positive, at least on that count.
ReplyDeleteThe longer the delibrations, better chances for the defendant
ReplyDeleteHey Gryphen, I live in Canada and like your blog. This is a bit off topic but thought I'd post a link to this study that just came out.
ReplyDeleteTurns out us commie Canucks :) live about 3 years longer than Americans and a large part of that is because of our access to universal health care.
Can you make sure it gets to the Quitta from Wasilla?
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/04/28/health-life-expectancy-canada-us.html
cheers
This is random for this post, but I've been thinking about Bristol's story. If she had a first baby pre Tripp, thta means in the couple of months between birth and Tripp's conception, she would have had to 1. been talking to Levi 2. experienced all the emotions she felt at having found out she was pregnant with Tripp 3. Not scare Levi away with post partum weight or even having a baby 4. If Mercede was being truthful in her post, the events do not line up for B to have two kids.
ReplyDeleteAnd in Oct, yes she was heavier, but have you noticed other family members and weight fluctuation? Seems to be a Heath family thing.
To of had Tripp in DEC, she wouldve had to give birth by Feb. In Oct 07, she didnt look pregnant.
I think she was pulled from school because of the impending fight between Levi's ex and whomever else. Why would Levi be out of school?
If you look at a natural timeline from a magazine, Sarah does look like she could be pregnant. Look at all the tiny high schoolers from the past who were able to completely hide their pregnancies from their parents, just by wearing appropriate clothing. Sarah does begin wearing the same type of clothing at the right time.
Sounds like a hung jury to me. The Palin supporters are probably trying to figure out how they can give him the death penalty for inconveniencing their princess and the normals are probably refusing to impose a ridiculous sentence for a dumb prank. The verdict will either depend on which side is more stubborn (and we all know rightwingers usually win battles with sheer orneriness) or will not come in at all and they'll have to declare a mistrial.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous 9:09, sorry, I cannot buy into your theory. I commend you for having given a lot of thought to it, though.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not trust timelines from magazines because they may have a vested interest in portraying things from one perspective. You know, if the magazine is owned by the Murdoch media syndicate.
Better to look to more objective sources like, say, Bree Palin's blog. I don't know if it is still up, but you can find other Alaskan blogs that have videos and still photographs that raise reasonable doubts as to Sarah's claim to have carried Trig.
Remember, Sarah is not a teenager. Her body had already given birth several times and with each ensuring pregnancy, women usually - not always, but usually - have a harder time hiding even the early stages of pregnancy because of the effect of earlier pregnancies on muscle tone.
Given that the one photo that is available showing Sarah in the latter stages of one her early pregnancies shows her looking like a house, I doubt she is someone who can carry-off a flat-tummy pregnancy for very long - certainly not seven months when she is in her mid-forties.
Bristol may or may not be the mother of two babies, but that's not as key as the doubt that Sarah carried Trig.
Sarah's switch from flat-tummy clothes to maternity clothes was too quick to be believable. No one plumps up dramatically in a one or two. Unfortunately for Sarah, there are too many public photos and videos that can be date-stamped.
Perhaps you have simply not seen all the evidence yet. You may be astonished once you do.
I feel so bad for this young man. My son did the same thing when he was younger. I think they really just don't think about consequences.
ReplyDeleteI was actually in a forums room when this happened and the young man told everyone what happened. He was just as surprised as anyone that he even got it. Then he was asked for proof that he did it. Thus posting some emails. But he was even careful not to post too much.
Really sad. I hope he doesn't get an unfair verdict. Consequences yes. Jail time? No way.
Oops - meant "one or two weeks" in that last part about how quickly Sarah could "plump-up." Sorry, just noticed that as I hit the Post Comment button. Someday I will learn to preview first, hit post afterwards.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story referring to Alaskan bloggers as the "mafia"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/Columnists/A_Time_For_Choosing/SARAH_PALIN_26_OBAMAS_ALASKA_MAFIA_ZERO/29641
I think it's a good sign, too.
ReplyDeleteI bet they're trying to figure out what they can (have to -by law) charge him with without him being punished... that's my guess.
Palins team trying to make this into a national security issue was far fetched, and that middle of the woods thing- we all know candidates are surrounded by secutirty, her BS probably didn't give their team any points. No one likes a pompus ass.
I am slightly more optimistic.
ReplyDeleteNo, Bristolbaby #1 was born sometime in April, Bristolbaby #2 was due in Jan., induced late Dec. It all works out.
ReplyDeleteI did a google on the "jury still out" on Kernell's trial to see if there was anything new... and do you all remember the cop that shoved a bike rider off his bike in NY? Well the jury has been out two days on that trial and there was video of the shove.
ReplyDeleteJury Still Out in Officer Bike-Shove Case
I've got my fingers and toes crossed that the jury will be lenient on Kernell.
The count they're deadlocked on is count one, identity theft. They said they're unanimous on the other three counts.
ReplyDeleteThe judge hasn't said yet what he'll do.
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=12377953
The jury has agreed to a unanimous verdict on 3 counts--deadlocked on identity theft. There are also reports to judge that jurors are not following the instructions. No explanation yet of in what way.
ReplyDeleteJudge is conferring with lawyers about whether to accept partial verdict or to direct jurors to keep deliberating.
I agree with the hung jury. They've got one or two holdouts. I'm hoping the majority are for minimal consequences. Maybe the state will decide another trial of this kid is a waste of money. Sarah got her grandstand.
ReplyDeletePatrick: OT
ReplyDeleteI was just looking at your comment. Maybe we should feed the trolls big time. Then we could spot them coming by their thighs.
As I recall, one of the jurors is a software geeky kind of guy. He could be explaining to the other jurors just how open and insecure Sarah's Yahoo email was.
ReplyDeleteJury deadlocked on identity theft charge. Unanimous on the others...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_14981573?nclick_check=1
http://www.wbir.com/news/breaking/story.aspx?storyid=120293&catid=29
ReplyDeleteThe jury deliberations so far.
anon @ 9:09:
ReplyDeleteno one at 8 months pregnant is going to get on a plane after her water breaks, and fly from texas to seattle, then from seattle to anchorange. just not possible. she would have birthed that kid on the plane - precisely why women in late stages of pregnancy aren't supposed to fly.
We have TWO photos of early Palin pregnancies where she is obviously pregnant, so she does get big.
ReplyDeleteIdentity Theft has a high bar. You need INTENT to use the information for financial gain, not just to embarrass someone.
ReplyDelete9:38 - thre was ONE photo that showed SP big as a house. true. Unfortunately, the following week she did not show at all. She didn't show during the wild ride, she didn't show when spotted at the airport. Pregnancies do not appear and disappear, but pillows can.
ReplyDelete10:17 - Baby #1 was born Dec. 2007 or Jan. 2008. Baby #2 was born Dec. 2008. It happens, especially when you don't use birth control. Hopefully, she's wised up for now. She really can't become a virgin again...LOL, BUT, she can use birth control and prevent it from happening again.
It is ironic that the jury is locked on identity theft. The same thing Sarah is guilty of for by claiming she is Trig's mom. Sarah is also guilty off insurance fraud.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the reason I never am posted here is that I have fat thighs. I should quit reading IM since I can't comment.
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:37, is sarah guilty of identity theft for personal gain? Pretending to be smart so people can give her money, but the truth is the alaskan dummy is paying people to give her info and write her FB posts and op eds.
ReplyDeleteLet's hear more about the babies! Then more talk about plastic surgery and Botox! Yay!
ReplyDeleteYikes. Unanimous on the others? That could be a bad sign. It's obvious to me that it wasn't an identity theft crime at all. He never pretended he was Palin, or intended to.
ReplyDeleteIf more of the truth about Sarah Palin and her family had been exposed to the public, maybe this young man wouldn't be in the position he is today, think about that. If more of Sarah Palins lies and fraud had been made public by now maybe this jury would be more skeptical about Sarah and Bristol's testimony "under oath". Maybe the people who know the truth should have stepped up to the plate before now and shut this woman down. Just sayin"
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that the identity theft charge is the most 'iffy' since I don't see any indication that he did that....
ReplyDeleteSo .. they must have a guilty verdict on the other 3 charges, otherwise, they wouldn't even be considering the identity theft, if they had a not guilty verdict on the other 3, since if he was 'not guilty' of the other 3, the identity theft wouldn't enter into it.
I think it doesn't look good for the kid.
Any legal scholars out there know more about the various charges? After much too long for what I thought would be an easy google search (which may demonstrate my lack of googling skills), I found out David is charged with four counts:
ReplyDeleteidentity theft
wire fraud
aiding and abetting computer fraud
obstruction of justice
I found no analysis of which is the most serious charge, or what was the evidence related to each charge. It must out there in the ether somewhere, but I didn't find it : ( Anyone know what the prosecution must prove for each count? - and what is the basis of obstruction of justice?
It was announced over the news here (about 50 mi. from Knoxville) that the jury has found David guilty on 3 counts & will deliberate Fri. re the identity
ReplyDeletetheft charge. Bad news for sure. Being a federal case he'll do time in a federal penitentiary. If
there's any lawyers on board here, please comment.
Sharon TN
"they must have a guilty verdict on the other 3 charges, otherwise, they wouldn't even be considering the identity theft, if they had a not guilty verdict on the other 3, since if he was 'not guilty' of the other 3, the identity theft wouldn't enter into it."
ReplyDeleteUntrue. They have to reach a verdict for each of the 4 charges. Whether they found him guilty or not guilty of the other 3 doesn't mean they don't have to reach a verdict on the 4th. None of us has any way of knowing what verdict they reached. They have told us nothing that indicates whether it's guilty, not guilty, 2 charges, 1, all three. We have to stay tuned.
The basis for the obstruction of justice was that he deleted the information he'd downloaded, changed the password back, and tried to undo what he did. It appears he did this before an investigation was started, so did he obstruct? It's up to the jury. However, the obstruction charge is the most serious. He was charged with "unauthorized access to a protected computer" not aiding and abetting computer fraud. The prosecution must prove he violated the law covering each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
If the jury has reached an unanimous decision on the other three charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a computer and obstruction of justice, they are probably going with guilty. If they had found him not guilty of the first three charges, they wouldn't be deadlocked on the identity theft charge. My guess is the verdict will be guilty on the first three counts, not guilty on the last.
ReplyDeleteI hope they are lenient when they go into the sentencing phase of the trial. But no matter what sentence he receives, Palin will have prevailed, as always, and will waste no time sticking her botoxed face in front of any camera she can find to let the world know she won the case.
Hey 12:14pm, you must have been working out or dieting as your comment came thru. Either that or you've discovered Spanx.
ReplyDelete"It was announced over the news here (about 50 mi. from Knoxville) that the jury has found David guilty on 3 counts "
ReplyDeleteThat's not what the jury told the judge. The jury told the judge they had reached verdicts on three of the charges and were deadlocked on the identity theft. They didn't reveal if their verdicts were guilty or not guilty. The judge told them they could announce their verdicts on the 3 charges and consider the 4th deadlocked or continue to deliberate. They chose to continue to deliberate. Reaching a verdict does not mean they found him guilty.
if your local station announced that 3 charges came back as "guilty" they are misreporting.
ReplyDeleteHe told jurors to resume deliberations but explained the option of a partial verdict. In that case, the jury could go ahead and announce its verdict on counts 2,3, and 4 then continue deliberating on count 1. Or the jury could choose to wait to announce verdicts until they have reached unanimous decisions on all four counts.
The jury opted to announce all parts of the verdict together and will continue to deliberate.
The jury wrapped up the Thursday's deliberations shortly after 4:00 and will return to court Friday morning at 9:00.
http://www.wbir.com/news/breaking/story.aspx?storyid=120293&catid=29
"So .. they must have a guilty verdict on the other 3 charges, otherwise, they wouldn't even be considering the identity theft, if they had a not guilty verdict on the other 3, since if he was 'not guilty' of the other 3, the identity theft wouldn't enter into it."
ReplyDeleteI agree. If he were not guilty on the computer fraud charge, he couldn't be guilty on the identity theft charge. The first leads to the second.
Mocha, I say that if he tried to undo what he did before he knew there would even be an investigation, it can't be obstruction.
ReplyDeleteWire fraud involves intent to defraud as does Identity Theft.
accessing a computer, well not really
Ratfish (Comment #1) Your comment could have been used to get Kernell off or at it least it gave me an idea.
ReplyDeleteTHe only reason why he hacked arah's email account was because he truly believed she had acted illegally and he was trying to obtain evidence to convict Sarah. ala citizen's arrest!
Too bad we thought of this too late!
"If more of the truth about Sarah Palin and her family had been exposed to the public, maybe this young man wouldn't be in the position he is today."
ReplyDeleteThat is troubling. I have to question the Johntons actions or lack of. You would think they would sympathize with a Kernell more. They did try to say something to the defense attorney after the fact. They don't or won't get it about how corruption is not just about how it effects them or their friends. They keep her secrets and they are her partner. Victims of battery or rape do not go through the witness process because they like that role, they often stand up to perpetrators so that no one else will have to be a victim. The people of the Valley do not care about others in that way.
How long until they talk about the appeal?
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear from the jurors. If any Alaskan reporters do interviews it will probably only be the Palin papers?
Palin will have prevailed, as always, and will waste no time sticking her botoxed face in front of any camera she can find to let the world know she won the case.----
ReplyDeleteAccording to a Palin friend at the WaPoo she might be doing news conferences now. It looks like she proved where the rumors started about her marriage, all the babies and her mothering skills. And did she ever take care of the rumors about any Palin and perjury.
Mocha ... the point was that IF they had found him NOT GUILTY of hacking her, then they HAD to find not guilty of the more serious charge..
ReplyDeleteThey would not have been deadlocked on 'identify theft' IF they had found him NOT GUILTY on the other charges, because he couldn't have done 'identity theft' if they decided he hadn't commited 'wire fraud' or whatever ...
Which is why I thought (correctly as it turned out now) that the only reason to still be deliberating the 4th charge was if they had reached a guilty verdict on the other three, on which we knew they had a verdict.
Had they been deadlocked on the 'wire fraud' ... that would have been better news for the defense.
Let's hope the judge shows leniency ........ there are going to have A LOT of people in Federal Pen if everyone who guesses a password to a Yahoo account ends up in jail!
Judge sjk says somewhere between 1-5 years, most or all of it suspended (24 months max prison time. hopefully less), no access to computers while on probation.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Anon 2:09 ... that is what I tried to say. Logical deduction.
ReplyDeleteWe were vacationing around the Great Smoky Mountain National Park for the last few days, only a scant 15 miles from Knoxville. I do not want to insult an entire state, or even smart, informed citizens of Tennessee. However, I will give you an example of some of the people we ran into:
ReplyDeleteA college student from Maryville Academy worked at our hotel. I asked what he though would be the outcome of that trial going on in Knoxville. He had no idea what trial we were talking about. No local people were discussing the trial.
In order to reach the Knoxville Airport, we had to travel on the Lamar Alexander Parkway. No one knew that the highway was named for one of their two state senators, a guy who is sill serving in Washington DC.
The good news is that we stopped at a BarBQ place in North Carolina, famous (and written up in guide books) for its racist owner. In addition to the BarBQ, he has displays of racist, religious and far-right wing literature. The last time we were there, my husband laughed at the pamphlets that declared Abraham Lincoln a traitor.
This time, the visit was quite a surprise. He still carried his own self-published political pamphlets. There was a biography by Lou Dobbs. But, surprise of surprise, no Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," no Sean Hannity, no Bill O. And big surprise, "Game Change" was also for sale, a book which was not complimentary to Sarah Palin.
Of course, local politicians running for office had placards everywhere, with their face and an American flag pictured, with the slogan "Take Back Our Country." So, these good people want to take back their country, but they don't know who their senator is, and they didn't know about the trial in Knoxville. I am sure there are also good, informed people in Tennessee, but we didn't have the good luck to meet them.
4chan user
ReplyDeleteLater that year, the private Yahoo! Mail account of Sarah Palin, Republican vice presidential candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election, was hacked by a 4chan user. This followed criticism of Palin and other politicians supposedly using private email accounts for governmental work.
The thing is, we have no idea how the young man found out about the account and the email address, Curiouser and curiouser
ReplyDeleteI understood that even though the jurors had reached decisions on three counts, they hadn't been announced.Yet, someone seems to have the information that they are three guilty verdicts. If the verdicts are known before being announced in court, does Kernell have grounds for an appeal? Those deliberations were supposed to have been secret, until the result was announced in court. (And then the judge polls each member of the jury asking if that is their opinion). Maybe I have been watching too many movies, or someone with loose lips may have given Kernell grounds for an appeal.
ReplyDeleteArchivist, you are merely guessing. You have no way of deduing what that jury has decided based on being dead-locked on identity theft. You are assuming that wire fraud and identity theft are related. They're not necessarily.
ReplyDeleteLilybart, I agree with you.
"The thing is, we have no idea how the young man found out about the account and the email address, Curiouser and curiouser"
ReplyDeletereally. I knew about the account and so did millions of other people BECAUSE it was posted in the papers immediately after her nomination.