Andrew Napolitano believes President Donald Trump’s former adviser, Roger Stone, should get a new trial.

The Fox News senior judicial analyst has known Stone for over four decades but said that has no bearing on the fact that the long-time Trump ally is “absolutely entitled” to a new trial in light of an “inherent bias” from a jury member.



(Source: Fox News)

“He is absolutely entitled to a new trial with a member of the jury making these types of revelations about the politics involved in the decisions to prosecute him,” Napolitano told “Fox & Friends” Thursday.

“I presided over 150 jury trials and most were criminal,” the former New Jersey Superior Court judge said.

“It is the duty of the judge to ensure that both the government and the defendant get a fair trial and if the judge discovers afterwards that there was a built-in inherent bias on the part of a member of a jury against the defendant, that is an automatic trigger for a new trial,” Napolitano explained.

Social media posts resurfaced from the left-wing, anti-Trump activist who was the foreperson of the jury that convicted Stone last year. Former Memphis City Schools Board President Tomeka Hart posted about Stone’s case before she had even voted to convict him on obstruction charges.

Juror on Roger Stone case: – Democrat candidate for Congress – Despised Trump and his inner circle – Far left wing activist pic.twitter.com/jEAqhg90hc — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 13, 2020

Hart, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat in 2012, had lauded Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation which led to Stone’s prosecution and had even accused Trump supporters of being racist.

This certainly looks like evidence that the jury foreman in Roger Stone’s case determined long before she was tapped as a juror that anyone indicted by Mueller must be guilty. https://t.co/YZr4ABx58G — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 13, 2020

“She’s going to have to call those jurors back in and interrogate them or make a decision on the spot,” Napolitano said of the Obama-appointed judge in Stone’s trial, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, noting that Hart’s social media posts were “obviously” not considered in the jury selection process.

“She is entitled to whatever opinion she wants and she can put whatever she wants on social media, but she can’t be a juror in a trial rife with the politics of Donald Trump and Roger Stone,” he contended.

Roger Stone jury reportedly stacked with leftist activists; Obama-appointed judge allegedly ignored https://t.co/Gv0yanotm2 — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) February 13, 2020

Napolitano dismissed the seven-to-nine year prison sentence recommended by prosecutors as “absolutely too much.”

“Is Roger Stone a danger to society? Absolutely not. Was anybody harmed as a result of what Roger Stone did? Absolutely not. Is the president of the United States of America, who is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the land, entitled to express an opinion to his attorney general about a case the DOJ is prosecuting? Of course he is,” Napolitano said, referring to Trump’s criticism of the judge and of the recommended jail time.

Democrats have been up in arms over the attorney general’s decisions and were immediately critical of the DOJ overruling federal prosecutors.

In reversal, feds revise Roger Stone’s ‘excessive’ sentencing recommendations https://t.co/J8MelhzDW9 — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) February 12, 2020

Trump thanked Barr in a tweet “for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.”

Napolitano agreed that the president should have questioned the prosecutors’ recommendation in a phone call and not publicly in a tweet, saying there would have been “nothing wrong” with Trump calling Barr about the matter.

Co-host Steve Doocy reminded Napolitano that is was a phone call that got the president into the impeachment mess.

“If he picks up the phone and says ‘hey, Bill, what are they doing over there?’ Somebody is going to be in the room. They are going to leak that, and next thing – another impeachment,” Doocy said.

“The Democrats will impeach him for anything they can,” Napolitano said. “The president is the chief federal law enforcement officer of the land. He’s entitled to express an opinion to the DOJ.”

“The judge has a mess on her hands,” he added, saying that a pardon of Stone by the president “would end this mess.”