Mistrial a Strong Possibility in Kleiman-Wright Case

Submitted by Aaron Goldstein on

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Aaron Goldstein

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A Miami jury has spent weeks in the courtroom listening to the plaintiff’s attempt to convince that a partnership existed between Dr. Craig Wright and the late Dave Kleiman to invent and mine Bitcoin.   The plaintiff in the case is one Ira Kleiman, brother of Dave.  The jury could determine the legal owner of nearly $69 billion in Bitcoin as well as the legal identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, author of the Bitcoin white paper.   But now that might not happen.

At this stage, extended and contentious deliberations are more likely to favor the defense than the plaintiff, and if the jury cannot come to a unanimous agreement, the trial of the century may be headed toward a mistrial, writes Jordan Atkins, who has been covering the trial for our colleagues at CoinGeek.com.

Judge Beth Bloom issued an Allen charge in the hopes it might secure a verdict.  This is only a temporary remedy however.  An Allen charge is additional instructions given by the judge to a deadlocked jury to encourage the minority to reach an agreement.

Atkins argues "if there are members of the jury that are utterly unconvinced that Dave Kleiman had any role in the Satoshi Nakamoto partnership, it’s hard to see additional urgings from the court doing what weeks of evidence could not."

As always Kurt Wuckert Jr. gives his take on what is currently transpiring.

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