US Attorney Jeanine Pirro Struggling to Secure Convictions During D.C Trials

Nathan Howard/Reuters Legal experts have raised concerns about the number of federal cases that have failed to secure a conviction in D.C. under U.S.

Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

CNN analysis has laid bare how much Pirro’s office has an “embarrassing” jury problem, with cases frequently falling apart once they reach trial.

While federal juries typically convict defendants in criminal trials around 90 percent of the time nationwide, the conviction rate for the former Fox News host’s office is well below this figure.

This includes juries in both December 2025 and April 2026 trials failing to reach a decision against alleged MS-13 gang member Moises Rivera-Luna, who is accused of ordering murders in the U.S. from inside a Salvadoran jail cell between 2008 and 2010.

Before the second trial against Rivera-Luna was declared a mistrial, Pirro’s office had secured only four convictions in the eight federal cases tried before D.C. juries since January.

Since then, the U.S.

Attorney’s Office has tried dozens more criminal cases in D.C.’s federal court with limited success.

In two cases, the defendants were acquitted, while four others were declared mistrials after juries failed to reach a decision.

More than two dozen legal experts, former prosecutors, investigators, and defense attorneys told CNN that Pirro’s poor track record in achieving convictions is unheard of.

Other legal experts described the trend with D.C. juries in federal court as “embarrassing” and dire.

The report arrives as Pirro faces scrutiny for bringing charges against former Olympian David Hearn, who had been accused of sabotaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, before announcing an embarrassing U-turn after admitting there was no evidence the pool had been vandalized.

Instead, Pirro’s office announced that the damage to the pool’s lining was actually the result of the “rushed and flawed” installation work of a contractor hired to carry out President Donald Trump’s renovation project.

The decision enraged the president, who is still pushing the false claim that vandals targeted the reflecting pool, and accused Pirro of “folding like an umbrella” by dropping the case.