Judgment given to "El Chapo" Guzmán: the mysterious delay of the jury to deliver its verdict

When the trial of Mexican Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán began in New York three months ago, many may have presumed that an inexorable "guilty" judgment was hanging him.

After all, "El Chapo" is accused of running the world's largest drug cartel, someone who has twice escaped from Mexico's prisons and who has been defined by US authorities as " the most notorious criminal of modern times ".

However, the jury spent its first week of deliberations without a verdict and publishing several notes with specific questions or requests for reconsideration of evidence.

The deliberations of the 12 anonymous members of the jury that started on Monday are reserved, they are covered with a certain cloak of mystery in a case that catches the attention of the whole world.

"What I've learned in many trials is that you can never guess what a jury is thinking," says Rob Heroy, a lawyer who defended another Mexican drug dealer and was Assistant Attorney at Carolina. from the north, to BBC World.

Whatever the case may be, "El Chapo" – who was facing life imprisonment – seemed animated and gave a sensual hug to one of his lawyers on Thursday afternoon, after the jury decided to pause their deliberations until Monday.

The big question asked in Brooklyn federal court is therefore, why do we need to know the outcome of this trial?

The jury's orders

The first logical explanation for the extension of the deliberations is that the process has been exceptionally long and perhaps overwhelming.

Jury members – ordinary people who have had to digress in their daily lives for this trial – must decide on 10 counts that "El Chapo" faces.

The charges range from the distribution and importation of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana to the use of firearms and money laundering.

The verdict form includes eight pages with 53 decisions to mark. In addition to establishing whether Guzmán is guilty or not of each of the charges, the jury must indicate whether the government has proven various violations.

And it may take more than four days of deliberation like the one that has taken place so far.

Only the first and most important charge, involving a persistent criminal enterprise, includes 27 alleged violations committed by "El Chapo" during specific months, from 1989 to 2014.

In what appears to be an attempt to determine several of these violations, the jury asked Thursday to review the testimony of the Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadía, aka "Chupeta", concerning 10 shipments of cocaine that he had sent to the cartel of Sinaloa de Guzmán between 2003 and 2005

This includes the accounting books that "Chupeta" carried with these shipments, which he called "Juanitas" and which, according to the prosecutor's office, had carried 55 tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States.

The jury also asked Wednesday to consult hundreds of pages of testimonies of former members of the Sinaloa cartel, such as Jesus "El Rey" Zambada, Vicente Zambada and Damascus "Licenciado" Lopez.

And on Tuesday, he asked to review the full story of Colombian drug traffickers Alex and Jorge Cifuentes, as well as an officer of the US Border Patrol. who participated in a marijuana seizure.

Why the members of the jury have asked in detail that these testimonies, which in some cases lasted several days, and not only specific pbadages of the same text, is another subject that intrigues those who follow the trial.

On the other hand, specific questions from the jury appeared.

"If members of a drug cartel are killed by an opposition cartel for personal reasons, can this be considered a drug-related crime?", Was the l. one of those questions.

The judge in charge of the case, Brian Cogan, replied that "if the motives for the murder are totally personal and not related to drug trafficking", it is not a crime drug trafficking.

"Serious"

The experts believe that the jury could examine in detail what the government itself defined as an "avalanche of evidence" against Guzmán, in order to determine the evidence in support of each charge. or violation.

"This jury is really serious in its work, that's why it does it and it does not just say that it's going to find that drug lord guilty of everything because the government wants it," says Heroy .

He also warns that it is likely that there are doubts about the credibility of some prosecution witnesses or that there are differences between the jury members regarding the verdict.

"It often happens that members of the jury ask for evidence to try to convince another member of the jury," he says.

For Guzmán, 61, to be found guilty of any count, the 12 members of the jury must be unanimous.

From the beginning of the trial, the defense sought to question the credibility of the 14 cooperating witnesses presented by the government, mainly former partners or collaborators of Guzmán seeking to reduce their sentences.

"If you have a doubt, do not let it go, hold it as if it were holding back its life," asked Jeffrey Lichtman, one of the lawyers for "El Chapo," in his final jury findings.

However, in addition to several witnesses, the prosecution has presented convincing material evidence, such as a series of intercepts of calls intercepted in Guzmán where he talks about drug trafficking, jars wine, violence or relations with the police.

"During these ten weeks, the government proved that the ten counts were beyond a reasonable doubt," said prosecutor Andrea Goldbarg in his closing remarks.

But as long as the verdict is not pronounced, it is possible – as far away as it is – that there is a jury disagreeing or that "El Chapo" is acquitted, in which case he should answer the charges against him in other US districts. and I would always be a prisoner.

Another option is for the jury to agree on some, but not all, of the 10 counts, which in practice may not make much difference to a total guilty verdict.

"The problem with a shared verdict is that it does not necessarily help much defense," says Heroy. "It's kind of a symbolic victory to overcome some of the charges, but the other charges come with penalties that can go up to life imprisonment."