GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Opening statements have been made in the trial of the four men charged with conspiracy to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Adam Fox, Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft Junior and Daniel Harris allegedly created a plot to kidnap the governor from her home.
Their attorneys are likely to take an entrapment defense, working to show that undercover federal agents along with FBI sources and informants coaxed the plan into reality.
Federal Prosecutors are working the opposite side of that coin, arguing the four men on trial would have created the plan, possibly even committed the crime, without government intervention.
US District Court Judge Robert Jonker told the jury entrapment is ‘not a defense the defendant has to prove,’ rather that the burden of proof sits in the hands of federal prosecutors. Jonker also said he hoped to push the discussion of entrapment to later in the trial, but the opening statements from the defense made it clear the topic needed to be explained at the very beginning.
Along with opening arguments, the first witness was called by prosecutors and the first pieces of evidence were presented. The first witness was an FBI Special Agent. The questioning from prosecutors started by discussing the investigation as a whole, and how the men on trial came to be investigated in the first place.
Evidence was also brought in in the form of text and voice messages, posts and videos on the Facebook pages of Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Not all of the Facebook evidence has been laid out just yet.
Some pieces included videos in which Fox discusses ‘bugaloo’ in reference to a second American civil war, and another where Fox says he and Croft Jr. share a ‘common goal’.
All of this evidence is being presented to a Jury comprised of 11 women and 7 men, 6 of whom are alternates. All of the jury members are white.
According to Former US Attorney Pat Miles, a lack of diversity in juries is nothing new in West Michigan, but it is a problem in many cases. However, he doesn’t believe the racial makeup of this trial’s jury will impact the final outcome in a major way.
“Because this case doesn’t seem to rest on a racial issue,” Miles said. “In terms of the defendants or even the potential victim in this case, the governor it doesn’t seem like that will be a big factor for the defense to raise or eve on appeal to claim they were not judged by a jury of their peers.”
Much of the language used in the Facebook videos could be seen as extreme, but it was politically charged, not racially. Miles says there is a great deal of evidence still to come from the prosecution, but he doesn’t believe race or racial views will hold importance in the trial.
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