The jury on the John Edwards trial went home Monday without reaching a verdict after asking to review eight additional pieces of evidence against the former Democratic presidential candidate. They’ll meet for their third day of deliberations on Tuesday morning.
Edwards’ defense team, meanwhile, filed this short theory of the case with the court, a theory that they’ll certainly use to appeal the case if the jury finds him guilty:
Mr. Edwards has pled not guilty to each of the counts in this case. He contends the payments made by Mrs. Mellon and Mr. Baron were not campaign contributions nor covered by the Federal Election Campaign Act and it would be a good faith belief for him to have concluded that. Consequently, he contends he did not enter into any illegal conspiracy to accept or receive any such contributions or file a false report to the F.E.C. In addition, he contends that the payments alleged in Counts 3, 4 and 5 were not accepted or received in the [Middle District of North Carolina] and the payments in Count 3 were not accepted or received while he was a candidate for President. Finally, he contends that he took no actions to prevent or cause any false report to be filed with the F.E.C.
