DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) — Closing arguments for the corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price will be heard Tuesday morning.
The jury will receive the case after both sides make one final push to whether or not Price took roughly a million dollars in bribes to sell his votes. But one legal analyst says the case will be a tough one to digest for the jury, with the government originally taking seven weeks to make its case.
“The fact that they only have mountains and mountains of documents — look, the jury’s eyes glazed over through all of that testimony,” said legal analyst Loretta Powers. “Are they really going to want to sit through it and sift through all of that evidence in these deliberations?”
They likely won’t have to consider the six counts of mail fraud against Price, with District Judge Barbara Lynn saying she’s leaning toward tossing them out due to lack of evidence — even if the jury finds him guilty on any of those six counts. Lynn has expressed frustration multiple times throughout the prosecution’s seven weeks of testimony, with prosecutors fumbling evidence and four different times submitting sets of documents they had originally misplaced.
“I don’t think it was enough to declare a mistrial, but it was definitely enough to make the defense look really good,” Powers said. “At this point, I think it’s even money on whether or not he’s going to be convicted.”
Price is still facing four other tax evasion charges and a bribery charge. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
In order for that to happen, however, Powers believes federal prosecutors are going to need to hit a home run during closing arguments.
“The only compelling evidence they really have is witness testimony, and that is notoriously unreliable,” Powers said. “So they better do all they can, pull out all the stops, and give a great show for their closing arguments.”
