The brief federal misdemeanor trial last month of Sean Dunn — who threw a “submarine-style sandwich” at a Customs and Border Protection officer in downtown Washington, D.C. — drew a full courtroom and a crowded overflow room. The 12 jurors did not at first appreciate how much attention their verdict would attract.
One juror expected deliberations to take less than an hour, noting that some people in the courtroom struggled to keep straight faces and even laughed during testimony. “It seemed to me like an open and closed type of thing,” another juror said. “It was kind of ridiculous.”
Dunn hurled the sandwich at a CBP officer at a busy intersection in August. The episode became widely publicized and a symbol of resistance to the Trump administration’s federal policing and National Guard deployment in the capital.
After roughly seven hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Dunn. It was the second time local citizens rejected the Justice Department’s prosecution: a grand jury earlier declined to indict Dunn on a felony charge. Dunn was later fired from his job at the Justice Department after the incident.
Three jurors spoke with CBS News about what happened behind closed doors at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse near the U.S. Capitol. All asked to remain anonymous under a court order preventing media from publishing jurors’ names.
Jurors described an initial 10-2 split. The majority concluded the episode did not warrant criminal charges or that prosecutors hadn’t proved criminal intent. “I thought we’d be out of there quickly. This case had no ‘grounding,'” one juror said. “He threw a sandwich at the agent because he knew it wouldn’t hurt. A reasonable person wouldn’t think a sandwich is a weapon.”
Another juror, a repeat D.C. juror, said the panel eventually agreed the matter “is not and should not have been a federal case.” The two holdouts worried a not-guilty verdict might signal it was acceptable to throw objects at federal agents. Jurors debated the kind of criminal intent prosecutors needed to prove; several asked whether someone could reasonably do harm to an officer wearing a ballistic vest by throwing a sandwich.
Jurors credited a “gentle and patient” foreperson for organizing a productive deliberation strategy. One juror, surprised to be assigned to the case, had known about the earlier grand jury decision and expected other jurors to be familiar with the headlines and video from August.
Though the charge was a misdemeanor without a long prison term, jurors said the trial carried unusual tension. “There seemed to be a lot of back and forth between lawyers and the judge to begin with. I’ve been on a jury before, and that hasn’t happened,” one juror said.
The notoriety of the case and the political issues tied to federal deployments added stress. Three jurors said they feared being publicly identified and targeted with threats or harassment. “We were very scared and nervous about what this meant for us,” one juror said, adding that Dunn appeared “really sad and desperate” at the defense table facing the U.S. government.
Some courtroom participants at times appeared to giggle or struggle to keep straight faces during testimony. “I mean,” a juror said, “it was a thrown sandwich.”