The Judge Rushes - Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Jury Deliberations
Last morning, when the jury asked for different colored highlighters, different colored Post-It notes, and a whiteboard, there was a feeling that they might be ready to get into the weeds on the case and deliberate for a while longer.
Judge Alison Nathan has tried to move the trial along as fast as possible, cutting a projected six week trial down to just about three weeks. Before the holiday break she offered the first day of the break, Thursday, for the jurors to continue their deliberations.
“No, thank you,” the jury said then. An asterisk clarified that they’d made plans.
That hasn’t stopped Nathan from continuing to offer though.
Throughout the day yesterday she talked about offering an extension over the next couple of days to the jury if they don’t finish their deliberations today. She phrased it as an “invitation.”
The suggestion was, “if the deliberations are not complete” at the end of normal proceedings tomorrow, they work until 6:00 PM.
The government agreed that they should encourage the jury to think about extending the day.
But Laura Menninger, one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense attorney’s, objected.
“Any suggestion,” Menninger said, “ that they should stay later is getting to sound like they should hurry up.”
Specifically, Menninger objected to the language in the proposed note that said “if the deliberations are not complete.” This implies, Menninger argued, that the deliberations should be finished by the end of the day today.
Judge Nathan got defensive about this, saying she had used the same language previously.
“I clearly have the discretion,” she said, and could “do it over your objection.”
Nathan said that she “would use precisely the same language I used…on multiple occasions.”
She relented though a little by the end of the day, agreeing to add a phrase at the end of the note saying that the invitation to deliberate further shouldn’t be taken as any pressure on the jury.
They should take as much time as they wanted, Judge Nathan clarified.