The determination by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected claims that Judge Brian Cogan made rulings permitting a jury to listen to defective proof at Guzman’s 2019 trial.
Cogan “conducted the three-month trial with diligence and fairness, after issuing a series of meticulously crafted pretrial rulings,” the ruling by the panel concluded.
Guzman, 64, was sentenced to life behind bars for an enormous drug conspiracy that unfold homicide and mayhem for greater than twenty years.
On enchantment, his attorneys had argued that the responsible verdict was tainted as a result of some jurors reportedly sought out information accounts about intercourse abuse allegations towards him that have been barred from the trial, and that Cogan erred by not ordering a listening to on the experiences.
“The decision seems like it was decided and written before the argument even occurred,” one among Guzman’s attorneys, Jeffrey Lichtman, stated in an announcement Tuesday. “How can there be justice here when the jury was exposed to scurrilous claims against Mr. Guzman which was not part of the government’s case?”
The appeals court docket discovered that Cogan was right to find “that the jury was not prejudiced by any extraneous information to which they might have been exposed.” It added: “Any possible prejudice was harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of Guzman’s guilt.”
Before the trial in federal court docket in Brooklyn, Guzman had attained near-mythical standing by escaping from jail twice in Mexico, the second time by way of a tunnel dug into the bathe of his cell. He was recaptured and despatched in 2017 to the United States and put in solitary confinement.
At trial, Guzman the protection argued he was the autumn man for different kingpins who have been higher at paying off prime Mexican politicians and regulation enforcement officers to guard them.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
