On Monday, after seven days of deliberations, the jury in the Elizabeth Holmes case returned a verdict of guilty on four counts of defrauding investors in her Silicon Valley healthcare startup Theranos, not guilty on four counts of defrauding patients who received erroneous lab results from the company’s supposedly revolutionary but defective blood-testing process, and no verdict on three remaining counts of fraud due to the jury’s lack of unanimous agreement on those charges.
There are several important takeaways from the Elizabeth Holmes prosecution, but one stands out above all others: Her trial showed our criminal justice system at its best. And at its best, the system is pretty darn good—which makes it all the more tragic that we so rarely see the system work the way it has so far in the Holmes case.
Here are more thoughts about that and a few other key takeaways and predictions:
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