John Edwards Trial Will Proceed to Jury GREENSBORO, N.C. - The fate of former Senator John Edwards will remain in the hands of a federal jury, despite arguments by his lawyers here on Friday that the government has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he broke the law and that all charges should be dropped. Although defendants often ask for such a ruling, they are rarely granted. Still, Mr. Edwards and his defense team walked into the courtroom here appearing confident in their arguments. "They are not granted in the usual case, but this is not the usual case," Abbe D. Lowell, the lead defense lawyer, told Judge Catherine C. Eagles of Federal District Court. Dissecting each of the six charges Mr. Edwards faces, Mr. Lowell said there was no credible testimony that Mr. Edwards and the people involved in covering up his extramarital affair had formed a criminal conspiracy to break the law. There is also no proof, he said, that the nearly $1 million used to hide Mr. Edwards's affair from his family and the public while he sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was a contribution for the sole purpose of influencing the election. The money was used, the defense team argued, to hide the relationship and the resulting child from an increasingly angry and suspicious Elizabeth Edwards, who died of cancer in 2010. Mr. Lowell asserted that a "fatal defect" in the prosecution's case was that there was no evidence that Mr. Edwards took any action with specific intent to violate the law or that donors gave the money as anything other than a gift. "What ounce of proof is there that this was a campaign contribution?" he said. The three-week-old trial has been filled with hours of testimony about the personal drama around Mr. Edwards, his wife, his mistress at the time, Rielle Hunter, and the cadre of aides and supporters who watched the affair unfold. Much of the government's physical case is built on cellphone records but few actual recordings, a handful of e-mails, hotel and private jet receipts and secret checks written from an enthusiastic, elderly banking heiress to help Mr. Edwards with a "personal problem." The prosecution's case relies heavily on testimony from staff members and aides, the chief among them Andrew Young. Mr. Young falsely claimed paternity for Frances Quinn Hunter, the child conceived in 2007 in a long-running affair between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. Mr. Edwards met Ms. Hunter at a bar in New York and went on to hire her to work as a videographer for the campaign, sneaking her in and out of his hotel room and taking her on the campaign plane. When reporters began circling the story, Mr. Young, his family and a pregnant Ms. Hunter went on the run. The government contends that Mr. Edwards ordered Mr. Young to get money from Rachel Mellon, the heiress, and then turned to his campaign finance chairman, a wealthy Texas lawyer, Fred Baron, to hide the affair. Mr. Baron, who died in 2008, provided private jets and hundreds of thousands of dollars to take care of Mr. Edwards's entourage. Much of Mr. Baron's support came after Mr. Edwards suspended his campaign in January 2008 after a poor showing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Mr. Edwards, Mr. Lowell told the court, was a seasoned politician and trial lawyer who knew what constituted illegal contributions and was careful to make sure money that flowed into his campaign and organizations that supported his causes went into the proper accounts. "He didn't just drop out of the sky into a world of campaign finance he knew nothing about," Mr. Lowell said. After two and a half hours of arguments from Mr. Lowell and rebuttal from the lead prosecutor, David V. Harbach II, Judge Eagles took less than 10 minutes to issue her ruling: "We will let the jury decide." Mr. Edwards, who faces up to 30 years if he is convicted, will begin his defense on Monday.