I immediately remembered the story about Al Capone's trial (dunno, if it was real or not) where the judge swapped the pre-selected jury - supposedly, a rigged one - with the neighboring courtroom's jury selected for some trivial civil hearing at the last minute.

Остроумно!

This would have been impossible - defense gets a word in jury selection (in Sutyagin's case this didn't help - it looks like the jury pool was manipulated).

good point - never thought of that. Here is what really happened:

>The names, addresses, and occupations of the 12 jurors who decided the case and signed this verdict were printed in Chicago newspapers. To reduce the chances of jury tampering, the judge tried to keep the trial as short as possible and confined the jury at night.

source: http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/american_originals/capone.html

This bit is amazing, too - shows that the Judge can do almost whatever the hell he wants:

>Initially Capone pleaded guilty, expecting a light sentence. In an unprecedented move, however, the trial judge announced he would not be bound by any such deal. The guilty plea was then revoked and a new trial date set.

I take it back - it IS possible. I trust my BBC :)

>With evidence that could potentially imprison Capone for 34 years, his lawyers approached the US Attorney and made a deal for a short sentence if he pleaded guilty. The trial began on June 16th 1931, but Capone's deal did not hold up. At his sentencing hearing on June 30th, Judge Wilkerson made it clear that no bargaining was to be done with a federal court - this obviously shocked Capone, and he withdrew his guilty plea. The trial was rescheduled to start on October 6th 1931.

His only chance of reducing his sentence now was to influence the jury, and during the summer before the trial, Capone's gang began the process of bribing and threatening all of the twelve jurors.

Realising what Capone would do, Judge Wilkerson made other plans, and on the day of the trial he openly switched jury's with another trial. The following day, after nine hours of deliberation, the new jury found Capone guilty of some, but not all, counts of tax evasion.

A week later, Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment, and a total of $80,000 in fines and court costs.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/alcapone.shtml

Maybe, but I still find it hard to believe.

I think that regarding the procedure in his courtroom, a Federal judge can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants. Especially, if there is credible evidence that someone is tampering with HIS jury.

Also, the times. Al, even before he was charged with any crime, was put on an official (and widely publicized) Public Enemies List. How's that for procedure?