FirstEnergy Trial Hung Jury Shows Keeping It Simple Isn’t Stupid

Nearly six years after the FBI broke open a massive corruption probe in Ohio—one involving top state officials, the head of a Fortune 500 company, and tens of millions in alleged bribes—the public is no closer to definitively knowing the extent to which FirstEnergy executives were involved.

That’s because jurors in Akron on Tuesday—following six weeks, 600 exhibits, and 30 witnesses, including a US senator—said they couldn’t decide on any of the remaining charges against the utility’s former CEO Charles Jones and ex-executive Michael Dowling. The men are accused of bribing a utilities regulator to the tune of $4.3 million for his influence, something they strongly deny.

If there’s another trial—and Attorney General Dave Yost (R) said there will be—state prosecutors would be wise to take a lesson from their federal counterparts in a related case (as well as any reporter worth their salt): keep the story simple.

Take, for example, how the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio told the tale of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R) and ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges in its openings. Prosecutors in Cincinnati put the men on trial for racketeering conspiracy in 2023 for their roles in handling and accepting $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy.

The prosecutors presented roughly just as much evidence as Yost’s office did this year. Assistant US Attorney Emily N. Glatfelter broke down an intricate web of transactions into digestible pieces the jury could follow.

In her telling, the scheme between Householder and FirstEnergy came together at a series of dinners between the speaker and utility executives in Washington when they were there for President Donald Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017.

It took about a minute to lay out, and Glatfelter then tied it to what happened afterward. In another part of her openings, she detailed the crimes the jury would hear evidence about, which undergirded the charge both men faced.

The jury found the defendants guilty in less than a day, and Householder’s now doing 20 years.

By contrast, seven women and five men tasked with deciding Jones and Dowling’s fate were out for more than eight days before determining they couldn’t reach a verdict on conspiracy, bribery, and other charges. And that was after the judge, when jurors first said it was at an impasse, sent them back to deliberate with interrogatories normally used in civil trials to help break down the decision-making process.

This followed a trial with similarly complicated evidence but, arguably, without as clear a crumb trail to follow. In his openings, lead prosecutor Matthew E. Meyer laid out over several minutes what he viewed as a crucial time period, complete with an assurance to the jury that “this is not boring.” It felt like playing defense, with some variation of the “not boring” line coming up multiple times.

The openings weren’t necessarily hard to follow but certainly didn’t feature anything as succinct as Glatfelter’s story.

And yes, these were completely different trials. One was in state court, the other federal, and they were held on opposite sides of the state. The judges—one elected, one with lifetime tenure—are in different positions and have diverging temperaments. The former executives also have more attorneys, all ready to object to even the slightest perceived error.

Yost’s prosecutors would give myriad reasons why they were hamstrung in Jones and Dowling’s trial, with none bigger than evidentiary rulings they said prevented them from telling the jury everything it needed to hear.

But as “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels is known to say, “the show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.” If they want to try the case, prosecutors must work with what they have.

And while Tuesday’s outcome is far from a victory for Yost, it’s certainly more favorable to his office than it is to the former executives. The fight will continue, and if that proves to be true, his prosecutors are in the enviable position of being able to edit their presentation.

Yost, himself a former reporter, knows a key thing about editing: few may welcome it, but they usually discover they need it.