CLEVELAND —
Jurors deciding whether a breakaway Amish group committed hate crimes in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish focused on the conspiracy charge Wednesday but ended their fourth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.
Deliberations resume this morning in the U.S. District Court trial of 16 Amish.
When jurors began deliberations Wednesday, they promptly asked the judge if a conspiracy could involve just some of the defendants.
Judge Dan Aaron Polster told the jury that a conspiracy wouldn’t necessarily need to involve all nine victims in the five attacks or all 16 defendants. Defense attorneys argued that the indictment specified a plot against nine victims, but Polster overruled them.
The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to cause bodily harm to the victims. The judge said that if all 12 jurors agree that the government proved a conspiracy, the jury then must separately decide who plotted.
The government calls the attacks hate crimes based on religious difference. The defense says it was an internal church dispute and doesn’t rise to a criminal level.
Prosecutors say the defendants cut off Amish men’s beards and women’s hair because the hair carries spiritual significance in their faith. They could face lengthy prison terms if convicted.
Defense attorneys acknowledge that the hair cuttings took place and that crimes were committed but contend that prosecutors are overreaching by calling them hate crimes.
All of the defendants are members of Sam Mullet Sr.’s settlement, which he founded in eastern Ohio near Steubenville.
Mullet isn’t accused of cutting anyone’s hair. But prosecutors say he gave his sons directions to the home of a bishop whose hair was chopped off and mocked the victims in jailhouse phone calls.
The government said all the victims were people who had had a dispute with Mullet over his religious practices and his authoritarian rule over the settlement he founded.
Some of the defense attorneys said that the hair cuttings were motivated by family feuds or that the defendants were trying to help others who were straying from Amish beliefs
World, nation, state
Jury eyes conspiracy charge in Ohio Amish trial
- World, nation, state
-
-
Military plans would put women in most combat jobs
Women may be able to start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later under plans set to be announced by the Pentagon that would slowly bring women into thousands of combat jobs, including those in elite special operations forces.
-
Jurors share concerns, and opinions, on Trayvon Martin shooting
Seminole County residents poured into the criminal courthouse in Florida last week as potential jurors for the trial of George Zimmerman. By the dozens, most were sent back home.
-
Internal Revenue Service supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases
An Internal Revenue Service supervisor in Washington says she was personally involved in scrutinizing some of the earliest applications from tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, including some requests that languished for more than a year without action.
-
Poll finds most men aspire to be fathers
A recent Associated Press-WE tv poll found more than 8 in 10 men said they have always wanted to be fathers or think they’d like to be one someday.
-
New evidence being checked in Cleveland kidnapping case
A state crime laboratory is checking new evidence to determine if there were additional victims of a man charged with kidnapping three women and raping them in his home over a decade, the Ohio attorney general said Friday.
-
Steubenville football player classified as sex offender
A high school football player convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl after an alcohol-fueled party last summer was given the state’s second-toughest sex offender classification at a Friday hearing.
-
Charla Nash denied permission to sue Connecticut over 2009 chimp attack
A multimillion-dollar claim against the state of Connecticut by Charla Nash — blinded in a 2009 mauling by a 200-pound chimpanzee that tore off her face — was dismissed Friday by state Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr.
-
Ideas for keeping your data safe from snoops
Phone call logs, credit card records, emails, Skype chats, Facebook message, and more: The precise nature of the NSA’s sweeping surveillance apparatus has yet to be confirmed.
-
With student loan rates about to double, lawmakers squabble
Student loan rates will double to 6.8 percent on July 1 if Congress doesn’t settle on a new plan soon, but disagreements flared Thursday, not only between the two parties, but between a veteran Democrat and President Barack Obama.
-
U.S. whites falling to minority in under-5 age group
In a first, America’s racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group, reflecting sweeping changes by race and class among young people. Due to an aging population, non-Hispanic whites last year recorded more deaths than births.
- More World, nation, state Headlines
-
