Ryan Trial to Continue

By Amy Hart in News on Mar 28, 2006 9:45PM

Wow, the twists and turns in the George Ryan soap opera is enough to make us run for the liquor cabinet. As for now, there will be no mistrial and jury deliberations will continue with two alternate jurors.

In a stunning turn of events, two jurors were kicked off of the case yesterday for lying on their pretrial questionnaires by saying they had never been charged with a crime. Last week the Tribune came across public records that the two jurors had been charged with crimes in the past, and the editors brought it to the attention of the court. In contrast to what we see in the movies, criminal background checks on the jury pool are not standard in federal court cases.

The Trib has been criticized for not going to the judge earlier with the discrepancies it found in the jurors' stories, but as Eric Zorn explains, the reporters just recently stumbled across the information in doing some side research on the case.

After she dismissed the two jurors, Pallmeyer said she wanted the case to continue, but she sounded doubtful that the trial would go on, saying things like, "If we can proceed with this case fairly, if we can continue..." (emphasis ours) Talk of a mistrial was all the rage today as Pallmeyer took her time in deciding what to do and met with attorneys for both sides.

The defense wanted a mistrial as the alternate jurors were released two weeks ago and have been free to watch and read about the case. Pallmeyer decided this afternoon that the case will go on with two alternates, but she may revisit the defense's motion if the deliberations do not proceed fairly.