An End to the Baumgartner Saga as Jury Convicts Disgraced Judge

A federal jury in Knoxville, Tennessee voted to convict former Knox County criminal court judge Richard Baumgartner, who was charged with lying to cover up a scheme that provided him with painkillers and sex.

The verdict meant that the former judge was found guilty on five counts of misprision of a felony and acquitted of one charge. Prosecutors were successfully able to convince the jury that Baumgartner had lied to cover up a conspiracy involving a defendant from his court supplying him with pills and sex. Baumgartner’s defense conceded he was an addict and adulterer, but unsuccessfully argued that his actions were not a federal crime.

The jury foreperson later spoke about the deliberations and said that jurors were never deadlocked on any of the counts as they debated their verdict, despite a few questions that led some observers to believe they were.
Deliberations lasted nearly 20 hours and many observers wondered what was taking the jury so long. The jury led some to believe they were going to end up deadlocked given a few of the questions they had for the judge. One question asked what they should write on the verdict form if they did not agree. The foreperson said that the question was not asked because of any actual deadlock, but instead asked preemptively, so that she could plan ahead in the event that unanimity was not possible.

The foreperson said that the reason for the delay was the complexity of each count that they had to decide on. For each charge, the jury of 12 people had to come to an agreement on four distinct elements: First there was a drug conspiracy. Second, Baumgartner had full knowledge of it. Third, he failed to report it. Fourth, he then worked to conceal the felony.

Some of the counts were easier for the jury to agree on than others and they ultimately acquitted Baumgartner on Count Two. The foreperson said the reason for that decision was because the crime of misprision deals with lying to federal officials and Count Two involved an incident at St. Mary’s hospital. The jury decided that there were not any federal officials present at the hospital and thus cleared Baumgartner on Count Two.

Read: “Richard Baumgartner Guilty: Jury Convicts Ex-judge In Drug Conspiracy Cover-up,” by The Associated Press, published at HuffingtonPost.com.

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Palin hacker loses before the 6th Circuit

• UNITED STATES V. DAVID C. KERNEL

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit has upheld the felony conviction for David Kernell, a former University of Tennessee student who was found responsible for gaining unauthorized access to Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo email account. Kernell was convicted by a jury of a misdemeanor for accessing the email account and a felony for obstruction of a federal investigation.

The incident precipitated a high-profile jury trial in the Eastern District of Tennessee, with testimony from Palin and her reality TV star daughter, Bristol. While Kernell claimed the hacking was simply a college prank, the prosecution portrayed the hacking as a politically motivated attempt to derail the campaign of Palin and her presidential running mate John McCain.

Kernell was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, he was released in November 2011. Now Kernell is appealing part of his conviction. David Kernell and his lawyer, Wade Davies, appealed the felony conviction on the grounds that it was unconstitutional to prosecute an individual for destroying records when there was no formal investigation. While the court agreed that the relevant law was vague, the three-judge panel upheld the conviction on the grounds that Kernell feared that there would be an FBI investigation into the incident later. Kernell made the mistake of posting on an internet discussion board expressing precisely those fears.

The court ruled that David Kernell’s decision to erase his internet browsing history and hard drive further proved his obstructive intent. The opinion released by the Sixth Circuit showed states that Kernell was not aware of any formal FBI investigation into the incident but found Kernell’s awareness of a potential probe is sufficient to uphold a conviction on obstruction of justice.

Kernell gained access to Sarah Palin’s email account during the 2008 presidential campaign by repeatedly guessing the account’s password reset questions. He correctly answered the question regarding where Palin met her spouse. After digging through Palin’s email and taking several screenshots, he changed the account’s password and posted it on an Internet message board for others to peruse and then bragged about his accomplishment.

Davies, Kernell’s attorney, said the 6^th Circuit’s opinion confirms that Kernell had no knowledge of an official investigation at the time of the alleged obstruction. Davies said he plans to seek review by the full Sixth Circuit and perhaps the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of being convicted for obstructing justice without knowledge of a pending investigation.

Read: “Sarah Palin email hacker loses appeal,” by Terry Baynes, published at Reuters.com.

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