Opinion ID: 2347659
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Brevity of the Jury's Deliberation

Text: The jury retired to deliberate on its verdict at 4:25 p. m. and forty minutes later the foreman knocked on the jury room door and announced that the jury had reached a verdict. It is the defendant's position that this period of forty minutes was not long enough to permit adequate consideration of the evidence presented in four days of trial testimony and proper deliberation upon the issues. The defense also comments upon the fact that, after reporting their verdict, the jurors delivered to the Court a proclamation in which they expressed admiration for the Justice's conduct of the trial and appreciation for his consideration and that of the jury officers for the jurors' comfort and welfare. There is nothing to indicate that this commendation was drafted and signed during the forty minute period and the defense did not ask the Court to ascertain whether such was the case. As a matter of fact, the record shows that the jurors remained in the jury room an additional fifteen minutes after announcing their readiness to report before the Court was ready to receive their verdict. The defendant argues that either the verdict was arrived at blindly after the jury retired or it was arrived at before the jury retired and before the jury could have considered all the evidence and the Court's instructions . . . .. We are unconvinced that the record requires either of such conclusions. Instead, we agree with the analysis of the State that [t]he issues of fact in this case were clearly drawn and the facts neither involved nor complicated. The evidence of guilt, though circumstantial, was compelling . . . It was not unreasonable for the jury to have returned a verdict in this period of time. The entry will be: Appeal denied.