The conviction rate inside U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s Washington office has collapsed so badly that legal experts are calling it “embarrassing,” according to a new CNN analysis published Monday.
More than two dozen investigators, former prosecutors, defense attorneys and other legal experts told CNN that Pirro’s track record at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is “essentially unheard of in recent memory.”
Federal juries nationwide convict defendants in criminal cases roughly 90 percent of the time. Pirro’s office is nowhere close.
Before a high-profile MS-13 case was retried in April, the DC office had won convictions in only four of the eight federal cases tried before Washington juries since January, CNN’s Katelyn Polantz reported. The numbers got worse from there.
Since that MS-13 jury hung, prosecutors have tried nearly a dozen more criminal cases in DC’s federal court. Two defendants were acquitted outright. Four trials ended in deadlock, with jurors sending notes saying they had deliberated “hopelessly” and reached complete “impasse.”
The MS-13 prosecution had been a marquee case for Trump’s Justice Department. Moises Rivera-Luna, whom prosecutors allege directed killings on U.S. soil while confined to a jail cell in El Salvador more than a decade ago, was touted by administration officials as proof of the DOJ’s law-and-order agenda. Juries failed to convict him twice.
Several people in the legal community told CNN that Washington jurors may be politically unhappy with the Trump administration and taking it out on the Justice Department. Most asked not to be named because they practice in the DC federal courthouse.
Christopher Davis, who represents a cooperating witness tied to the MS-13 prosecution, was blunt. “These cases come with a playbook,” he told CNN. “It’s hard to screw up these cases.”
Davis added that “DC juries tend to lean left, and they’re highly educated,” saying they “take their job seriously” and “overturn every stone.”
The dismal courtroom record lands as Pirro is already under fire for charging former Olympian David Hearn with sabotaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, then dropping the case after her office conceded the damage came from a contractor’s “rushed and flawed” installation work on a Trump renovation project.
Trump erupted, accusing Pirro of “choking” and “folding like an umbrella.” CNN later reported the president was furious and considering removing her, according to Newsweek. Another Rivera-Luna trial is set to begin in mid-September.
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