Stevens Jury Done For The Week

Judge Sends Jury Home To Accommodate Juror's Family Emergency

(AP)  A judge ordered a one- to two-day halt to jury deliberations in Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial Friday, the latest setback in a gripping case and one that could delay a verdict until after Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he wanted to accommodate a juror whose father died. The juror rushed to California early Friday morning, before jurors were set to begin their third day of deliberations.

Prosecutors asked Sullivan to bring an alternate juror onto the panel so deliberations could continue but the judge declined. The first two days of deliberations have been marked by reports of stress and violent outbursts in the jury room and Sullivan said jurors might benefit from a break.

"Everybody needs a day off now and then," Sullivan told the jury. "I want you to enjoy yourself this weekend."

Sullivan said he would speak with the juror Sunday night and determine whether she could return Monday. He said he might delay deliberations until Tuesday or call in an alternate.

If an alternate is tapped, jurors would be ordered to start deliberating anew. Election Day is 11 days away. Stevens, 84, is locked in a tight race with Democrat Mark Begich, who is trying to unseat the 40-year senator.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens is charged with lying for years on Senate financial disclosure documents to conceal $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from his friend, millionaire oil contractor Bill Allen.

The trial has been beset by problems since the eight women and four men received the case Wednesday afternoon. Within hours, jurors asked to go home, sending a note to the judge saying that things had become "stressful." Thursday afternoon, a more explicit note was handed up, with jurors asking that one of their members be dismissed.

"She has had violent outbursts with other jurors, and that's not helping anyone," the note read.

Sullivan did not send the woman home. Instead, he called jurors into the courtroom and told them to "encourage civility and mutual respect among yourselves."

Tension in the jury room normally is viewed as good for a defendant. It increases the likelihood that jurors won't reach the unanimous decision needed for a verdict. Without unanimity, a trial ends in a mistrial and prosecutors must decide whether to start over.

[karela33]

I''m not sure about the details of the house, but the details of the dog and the fancy chair show that Stevens played with people and words to get around the Senate rules and he lied, under penalty of perjury, when he signed his annual reports about those things at least. And the generator was fishy, the heated roof, the expensive copper fish statue/fountain---there were just too many things where Ted wiggled things. It isn''t just a chair, or a dog or whatever. It''s lying under penalty of perjury and it''s his continual willingness to take things he shouldn''t by pretending gifts were loans, etc. I don''t long to see him in prison, but I sure don''t think he should be in the Senate either. If we don''t start holding our public officials responsible, then we''ll have to continue to suffer with the consequences of the things they get up to. I don''t think they should break the laws at the same time they''re making laws for us to live by. Do you?