The temporary federal felony trial final month of Sean Dunn, the person who threw a “submarine-style sandwich” at a Customs and Border Safety officer in downtown Washington, D.C., was solely a misdemeanor case. However the courtroom was crammed, and the overflow room was crowded, too.
The 12 jurors did not understand initially that Dunn’s case — and their verdict — would garner nationwide consideration.
One juror thought the deliberations would final underneath an hour. The juror, a longtime resident of Washington, D.C., additionally famous that some folks within the courtroom struggled to “preserve a straight face” in the course of the trial and even laughed brazenly.
“It appeared to me like an open and closed kind of factor,” one other juror stated. “It was sort of ridiculous.”
Dunn hurled the sandwich on the CBP officer stationed at a busy intersection in August. The incident was broadly publicized and rapidly grew to become a logo of resistance in opposition to President Trump’s federal policing crackdown and Nationwide Guard deployment within the nation’s capital.
After roughly seven hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Dunn. It was the second time a gaggle of D.C. residents rejected the Justice Division’s declare that Dunn, who was fired from his job on the Justice Division after the incident, had dedicated a criminal offense in tossing a sandwich at a federal agent. A separate grand jury had rejected the prosecutors’ request to indict Dunn on a felony cost earlier this 12 months.
Contained in the jury room
Three jurors who sat on the panel spoke with CBS Information concerning the deliberations, revealing how the politically charged case performed out behind closed doorways within the jury room of the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., close to the U.S. Capitol.
All requested to stay nameless. A courtroom order from the chief decide of the D.C. U.S. District Court docket prohibits CBS Information and different media shops from publishing the jurors’ names.
The jurors described an preliminary 10-2 cut up on the 12-person panel. The deliberations weren’t so simple as a few of them had anticipated.
Nearly all of jurors thought the incident didn’t benefit felony expenses, or that felony intent was not confirmed, in keeping with two of the members of the panel. One juror informed CBS Information, “I assumed we might be out of there rapidly. This case had no ‘grounding.’ He threw a sandwich on the agent as a result of he knew it would not harm. An inexpensive individual would not suppose a sandwich is a weapon.”
A second juror, who informed CBS Information this was not her first time serving on a D.C. jury, stated the panel ultimately “agreed that this isn’t and shouldn’t have been a federal case.”
The jurors stated the 2 preliminary holdouts anxious {that a} not responsible verdict would ship a message that it is typically acceptable to throw issues at federal brokers.
The 2 jurors informed CBS Information that the jury debated at size about the kind of “felony intent” that wanted to have been demonstrated by prosecutors.
One juror stated, “We requested one another: If we solely take a look at this case, can somebody actually do hurt to somebody sporting a ballistic vest by throwing a sandwich?”
One of many jurors additionally credited the “mild and affected person” foreperson with arising with a productive communications technique throughout deliberations.
A juror who spoke with CBS Information by cellphone was stunned to be assigned to the case, as a result of the juror had heard concerning the prior rejection by a grand jury of Sean Dunn’s felony case.
“I used to be stunned a number of the different jurors have been unfamiliar with it,” the juror stated, noting the headlines generated by Dunn’s arrest and the video of the sandwich toss in August.
Although the case was a misdemeanor, with out the prospect of a prolonged jail time period for conviction, one juror stated she observed an uncommon rigidity within the proceedings at trial.
“There gave the impression to be loads of forwards and backwards between attorneys and the decide to start with. I have been on a jury earlier than, and that hasn’t occurred,” she stated. “So, that sort of stood out to me.”
The notoriety of Dunn’s case and the political tensions surrounding the Trump administration’s deployment of federal brokers on the streets in D.C., added a singular stress on the jurors. Three informed CBS Information they’re anxious about being publicly recognized and dealing with the prospect of threats or harassment.
“We have been very scared and nervous about what this meant for us,” one juror stated.
The identical juror, who was acquainted with the case earlier than she was chosen, stated she thought Dunn seemed “actually unhappy and determined on the protection desk as a result of he was going up in opposition to the U.S. authorities.”
One juror famous one witness and a few attorneys within the room appeared to “giggle” or struggle to maintain a “straight face” throughout a number of the testimony.
“I imply,” the juror stated, “it was a thrown sandwich.”
