With two British men having been acquitted of bribing Saudi officials in an arms deal, Law 360 asked Francesca Cassidy-Taylor about the outcome.
She said that the men's defence strategy of arguing that they were pawns in a much larger bribery scheme that was organised and authorised at the top levels of government was "putting one's faith in the jury system."
She explained that a jury defence, rather than a technical legal defence, aims to persuade jurors that acquittal is the just result in the circumstances, irrespective of legal technicalities that may point to a defendant's guilt.
Francesca added: "It is a strategy reliant on common sense prevailing in the jury room.
“The repeated emphasis by defence teams of the role of the Ministry of Defence and politicians in sanctioning the corrupt payments almost certainly signifies the jury's disapprobation of such political complicity and the injustice that would arise from convicting individuals who had been 'hung out to dry' against this backdrop.
"The jury system is imperfect, but it is the cornerstone of criminal justice in the UK, and the verdicts in this case highlight why defence strategies should not discount the value of appealing to a jury's sense of justice.’’
The full article can be read here.
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