John Edwards Jurors Explain Why Guilty Verdicts Weren’t Possible
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Courtroom Sketch by Christine Cornell(NEW YORK) — The jurors in the John Edwards trial spoke Friday morning for the first time about their nine days of deliberations that resulted in a not guilty verdict on only one count and a mistrial on the remaining counts.
One of the jurors, Theresa Fuller, told ABC News’ Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos that she didn’t even think the case should have come to trial at all.
“I felt like the evidence just wasn’t there. It could have been more. It could have been a lot more than what it was,” she said.
Despite the inability to reach a unanimous decision on most of the counts, the five jurors who appeared on GMA, including two alternates, were in good spirits about their experience in the highly dramatic case.
Jonathan Nunn, a juror and a maintenance specialist at the University of North Carolina, explained why he was unconvinced of Edwards’ guilt in taking illegal campaign contributions in order to hide his pregnant girlfriend.
“In my opinion, it was personal gifts,” Nunn said.
Another juror, Sheila Lockwood, a telephone operator in a hospital, said she felt that because the money didn’t go to Edwards directly, she could not find him guilty.
“I just felt that he didn’t receive any of the money so you can’t really charge him for money that he got. He didn’t even get the money so I just didn’t think he was guilty,” she said.
The 12 jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict and some stood their ground in opposition to Nunn and Lockwood. Nunn says it occasionally grew tense in the jury room.
“There was a couple of times that it did but at the end of the day we were all just one big happy family and that’s the way we tried to keep it. We tried to keep level-headed. So at the end of the day everybody got along,” he said.
One of the strangest developments throughout the case were reports that one of the alternate jurors seemed to be flirting with Edwards. That juror, Denise Speight, dismissed such assumptions with a laugh.
“I thought it was just the most funny thing I’ve ever heard. Actually I was giggling over, I think, the media reaction when we walked into the courtroom over our outfits and color. No intention of flirting with John Edwards and I don’t think he had any intentions of blushing or flirting back with me,” Speight, a pharmacist and mother, said.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio