Judge Denies Andrew Left Mistrial Bid After 13-Count Fraud Conviction

Q: A jury convicted on a charge the judge dismissed. Why wasn't this an automatic mistrial?

It was not an automatic mistrial because the error did not necessarily invalidate the entire trial. A mistrial is a judge’s remedy for a defect so serious that the proceedings cannot fairly continue, and it is not triggered automatically every time a jury makes a mistake on a verdict form. In Andrew Left’s case, the jury used an outdated form that still included a count the judge had already dismissed: lying to a federal investigator. The jury marked him guilty on that count, but Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that this did not justify wiping out the whole verdict. The key issue was prejudice: whether the mistaken form tainted deliberations on the 13 other counts that were properly before the jury. Judge Phillips said Left’s argument that the form “prejudiced the jury deliberations” was “unavailing.” That suggests she viewed the problem as correctable without ordering a new trial on everything. Courts often treat this kind of mistake as a post-verdict legal error that can be fixed by striking the invalid count, rather than as proof that the jury’s entire decision-making process was corrupted. That is why the likely remedies are narrower than a mistrial: vacating the conviction on the dismissed count, post-trial motions, or appeal. To win a new trial, Left would generally need to show the bad verdict form probably affected the valid convictions too, not just that the jury checked the wrong box on one charge.

1 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 18

US District Judge Virginia Phillips rejected Andrew Left’s mistrial request in Los Angeles, dealing an early setback to his effort to undo this month’s securities fraud verdict.
Left had argued the jury used an incorrect verdict form and that the error prejudiced deliberations, but Phillips said that claim was “unavailing.”
The ruling leaves intact Left’s conviction on 13 securities fraud counts as he continues trying to overturn the verdict.