Prosecutors failed again at convicting John Gotti Jr. in his latest criminal trial
Like father like son, so it might seem. John Gotti walked away from a Manhattan courtroom a free man this week after the jury failed to find him guilty on a number of charges, resulting in a mistrial. Hung jury, as it is also called, was declared by the judge after the jury deliberated for 11 days. This was the forth time that prosecutors tried to put him away. His father John Gotti Sr. went through three trials which were all declared mistrials before they finally found him guilty on the forth attempt.
Each mistrial fuels further and hotter debates over the sense of continuing to bring him to trial. On one hand, people argue that enough is enough. Why spent all that time and money. If you can't convict him in two, then what is the sense in trying a third, or a forth, and so on. But on the other hand, the prosecution stated this week that yet another mistrial does not negate all of the hard work that law enforcement and the prosecution's office put in trying to collect evidence and taking him to trial.
The law does not put a cap on the number of times that the prosecution can bring someone to trial. Many think it should. Not only was time and money spent investigating and collecting evidence, but trials take time and money. Not to mention those valuable court resources are being used when one of thousands of other cases could be taken to trial.
Although there very well could be more, the most I have ever heard of here in South Carolina has been four. Prosecutors, better known as Solicitors here in SC, would obviously have a case that they deeply wanted a conviction on to keep trying like that. No doubt continuously bringing the same defendant back to trial over and over would be a defense attorney's nightmare, not to mention the defendant. In this latest attempt with Gotti, the prosecution added allegations of drug murders from 1998 and 1991. It seems strange that they would add charges after three previous failed attempts. But apparently they felt that for some reason including these latest criminal allegation would bolster they case. But it obviously didn't work.
So will they bring him to trial a fifth time? That's anyone's guess.
