At the conclusion of the series Mad Men, a yoga instructor tells his class, including Don Draper, “A new day. New ideas. A new you.” This sentiment resonates with the defense team in the retrial of United States v. Hamilton, which recently ended in an acquittal on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and two counts of bribery.
In this retrial, the prosecution presented the same case it did four years ago. Previously, this resulted in a conviction on three out of four charges and led to an eight-year prison sentence for Ruel Hamilton.
The defense team approached this case differently than before. Neither attorney had participated in the original trial, allowing them to view it with fresh eyes. They recognized that achieving a different outcome required trying the case in a significantly different manner to address allegations and evidence described by The Dallas Morning News as “damning.”
The evidence included hidden video and audio recordings from 2018 showing Hamilton writing a $7,000 check to a city council member. Additionally, there were hours-long recordings from 2015 where he discussed his real estate business with another council member and talked about various payments.
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