Predictions on how quickly/slowly the jury will return a verdict?

[1-Old-Man]

28. A couple of days. I've served as Foreman of two Juries, I'll tell you how we did it.

First off I may have some sort of record in that I've been called and served six times. Two of those times I was the Foreman of the Jury, which doesn't mean much but it does require that you keep the process orderly and of course someone has to fill out the papers and communicate with the Judge.

The last one I served on would be the best example of at least how I conducted the show. The trial was very nasty, incest over a number of years with two daughters of the defendant. I do not remember how many counts of what the guy was charged, but incest and statutory rape were among them, in total the charges numbered a few over twenty.

The very first thing I did when we got situated in the Jury's room was to simply ask if there was anyone in the room who thought the guy was not guilty. There was not one person who thought he was anything other than guilty of all charges. That took all of 15 minutes, but that's not what the job of a Jury is; the job is to deliberate. So then I acted mostly as MC and scribe as we went over each and every charge individually. Each Juror had their say and each of us voted on each charge. It took us all of two days to do that. In the end there were two charges that we didn't find the guy guilty of because some, though not all, of us saw a conflict in time that made it impossible for the guy to have been guilty of both charges. We didn't know which one he did and which he didn't so we found him not guilty on either of them; there was doubt.

But my point is this - even though it might look cut and dried it still takes time and the defendant absolutely deserves the fair consideration and reflection each and every Juror on every charge.