Jury Revolts! - Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Deliberations
“If there’s no verdict tomorrow, I’ll say through the weekend.”
The jury revolted this evening after a long day without any word. Yesterday, Judge Nathan had asked them to deliberate until 6:00 PM this evening. If there were any objections to that arrangement, she asked for them to bring it up with the court officer.
This morning, there was no word that anyone on the jury wouldn’t be able to stay until 6:00 PM. Then, at a quarter to 5:00, the jury sent a note to the judge.
“Our deliberations are moving along and making progress,” read the note. “We are at our endpoint and we wish to end our deliberations at 5:00 PM and resume tomorrow at 9:00 AM.”
Judge Nathan seemed irritated by the request.
After pausing for a beat she spoke: “I don’t know if anybody wants to say something”.
Ghislaine Maxwell was wearing all black again, and in the court with her were her sisters Isabelle and Christine, as well as her brother Kevin. They were joined by Lea Saffian, a close friend of the family and Kevin’s former attorney.
For the government, Alison Moe reiterated her support for the Judge’s directions. But the defense, represented by Jeffrey Pagliuca, said that the jury had asked to finish for the night, and so they should be allowed to finish for the night.
The judge agreed to send the jury home at 5:00 PM like they asked for, but she was going to instruct them going forward to deliberate every day until they have a verdict. That includes until the end of the week, and into the weekend.
This, said Nathan, was “the best way to avoid a mistrial as a result of the omicron variant,” which she warned was increasing in intensity.
Pagliuca argued against adding the instruction that the jury would have to deliberate into the weekend, saying this would put pressure on the jury and imply that they need a verdict before the end of the week.
Nathan agreed to limit her instruction today to saying they’d be deliberating until the end of the week.
“[But] if there’s no verdict tomorrow, I’ll say through the weekend,” Nathan warned.
I talked briefly with Maxwell’s defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim earlier in the day.
“What’s the longest you’ve had a jury deliberate for,” I asked.
“A couple weeks,” she said.
“Is that a good sign?” I followed up.
“That just means they’re doing their job,” Sternheim said. “It’s all you can ask for.”