Milwaukee election day tire slashing trial in the hands of the jury

On Election Day 2004, Republican campaign workers in Milwaukee discovered slashed tires on the 25 vans the party rented for its get-out-the-vote effort.

Five Kerry-Edwards campaign staffers, including the adult children of two prominent Milwaukee politicians, big cheeses if you will, are on trial for allegedly puncturing those tires.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports tonight that jurors deliberated for 2 1/2 hours this afternoon, before heading home. They'll reconvene Friday morning.

AP has more details:

Milwaukee County District Attorney David Feiss told jurors that testimony from several national Democratic campaign workers brought to Milwaukee showed the defendants acted together to cause the damage and then were heard talking about the vandalism once back at the Democratic office the morning of the election.

``If the defendants had not gone back and bragged to their co-workers, they might have gotten away with it,'' Feiss said.

Defense attorney Rodney Cubbie attempted to raise doubts about the credibility of the national operatives' testimony which blamed the defendants, saying each of the witnesses lied to investigators, some more than once.

``These guys got blamed because they're convenient, that's why they got blamed,'' he said.

Despite the well-reported closeness of the presidential race in Ohio--Wisconsin's votes was closer, with Democrat John Kerry edging out President Bush by only 12,000 votes.

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