(The Center Square) – Conviction for official misconduct by Delaware’s former state auditor has been reversed by the state’s highest court.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, the Supreme Judicial Court said Kathy McGuiness did not get a fair trial in 2022. It upheld the jury’s finding that she was guilty of conflict of interest.
Justices wrote that despite McGuiness’ “inflamed rhetoric” that the convictions were “profoundly unfair and unconstitutional” the “record amply demonstrates that she received a fair trial.”
“The defendant raises a mélange of issues on appeal, including that the state failed to present sufficient evidence of the charged crimes and violated the defendant’s due process rights by suppressing exculpatory evidence,” they wrote in the 86-page ruling. “We reject those arguments because they distort the trial court’s holdings or misapply the law.”
But the court ruled that one of McGuinesses’ convictions on a charge of official misconduct should be reversed “because the legal insufficiency of one of the charges resulted in the spillover of evidence that prejudiced the jury’s consideration of a closely linked charge.”