WestAustinAg said:
aggiehawg said:
Mathguy64 said:
aggiehawg said:
When the retrial date is set I'll expect a very targeted gag order imposed by the court.
There won't be a retrial. I can't imagine the DA in Mass wanting to lose this and go through another public **** show. If it was a hung 11-1 for conviction they would have retried it immediately. But not 11-1 to acquit and with the local politics being what they clearly are. I'm not saying those people are right but they are really riled up. And that DA has to get re-elected.
We'll see. MA is very weird state, as we saw with the Karen Read trials, all of them. And there was almost no evidence against her. They even sprung for a highly compensated special counsel fo her retrial.
But while I'm here there is something that has been bothering me since the extended jury deliberations. That is how did Reddington know for certain that the jury was heavily leaning for acquittal to be as adamant as he was during deliberations? Did he have inside information?
I mean there is posturing that is employed by trial attorneys as part of representation but Reddington went far beyond that. You can get a feel from a jury's demeanor of course but can never be sure that you are reading them accurately. But he had no doubt. How?
The one jury trial i served on in Austin (aggravated sexual assault of a minor) had a rapidly changing set of beliefs surrounding the guilt/innocence of the defendant. At first, the female state workers on our jury were confident that the hispanic was innocence. This irritated me and a couple of others. I went from trying to lay low and get through it all to becoming vocal because it was so obvious to me. I started aggressively explaining how he was guilty. We went from something like 10 people who thought he was innocent to 9 thinking he was guilt in 24 hours.
The judge knew what was happening and he told the attorneys for both sides. Because they were hours away from a guilt verdict they bargained with the judge for him to take the verdict away from us, pronounce him guilty and the two sides agreed on a lesser penalty and we came out quickly.
BTW - the prosecution spoke to us after the verdict. He was guilty. He had been abusing the young boy for years (not the single count of SA), defendant was already in jail for other assaults (a fact we were not allowed to know).
I assume jury deliberations are well known by both sets of attorneys.
They are not supposed to be. BUT if the deputies and bailiffs supervising the jury overhear heated loud arguments from the deliberation room, they will tell the judge. Jury can ask questions on the law directed to the Judge, which are then shared with counsel and they are told what the judge's response to those questions will be.
Now, there can be extreme situations wherein a jury gets out of control with one another and the court will step in (sounds a bit like your case) and counsel will be informed by the court of the measures being taken to correct the situation.
Also remember I'm an old timer. When I practiced trial law, the rules were stricter and judges were adamant about controlling their courtrooms and the people, including the attorneys therein. A judge would only admonish you once. The second time was sanctions and possibly cooling your heels in a holding cell if you pissed them off enough. Judges are too lenient now, in my view. And that leniency has led to disastrously out of control and longer trials for high profile cases. Sad what the legal profession has been reduced to.
