John Edwards facing toughest vote of his life

John Edwards is facing the biggest vote of his life as the case against the former president candidate was given to the North Carolina jury this morning.

Edwards, 58, could be hit with a prison term as high as 30 and fined up to $1.5 million if convicted of all the charges, although it is unlikely he would be hit with the most severe penalty.

The two time presidential candidate for the presidency is charged with using nearly $1 million in donations to hide his mistress Rielle Hunter and their love child during his bid for the 2008 election.

Federal Judge Catherine Eagles will finish charging the jury this morning and the panel will retire to begin its deliberations.

The jury consists of eight men and four women. They include five African Americans, six whites and one person whose background was not clear.

In closing arguments, Edwards' lawyer Abbe Lowell told the jury that the money to hide his mistress came from former campaign treasurer Fred Baron and elderly supporter Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. Both people gave him the money as a gift for his benefit, not as part of his political campaign.

And the money, Lowell argued, was used to hide the affair from Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer.

"John was a bad husband, but there is not the remotest chance that John did or intended to violate the law," Lowell said.

"If what John did was a crime, we'd better build a lot more court rooms, hire a lot more prosecutors and build a lot more jails," he said.

Lowell said the real culprit was Edwards' aide Andrew Young who helped hide Hunter. He claimed that Young solicited the money from Mellon and used the scandal to enrich himself. Lowell said Young, who was the prosecution's chief witness, and his wife Cheri would "shame Bonnie and Clyde."

Prosecutor Robert Higdon tried to convince the jury that Edwards was an archly ambitious politician fixated on obtaining a higher office.

"He would deny, deceive and manipulate," Higdon told the jury. "The whole scheme was cooked up to support John Edwards' political ambitions."

Neither Edwards nor Hunter took the stand during the month long trial.

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