Is No Word From the Jury Good News for Bonds? - Law Blog - WSJ

Trying to decode how a jury is going to rule while they’re deliberating isn’t exactly like reading tea leaves.

Actually, it’s more like reading a cup of hot water. Often, you have absolutely nothing to go on and no idea what’s happening within the so-called black box of the deliberation room. It can drive control-freak lawyers absolutely bonkers.

Nevertheless, the spirits of Allan Ruby, Cris Arguedas and Barry Bonds must be a little bit buoyed these days by the fact that the jury in the slugger’s perjury trial has been out for so long. The trial deliberated for a third day without reaching a verdict and is scheduled to resume discussions today. Click here for the SF Chronicle story; here for the NYT story.

The jury got the case Friday. Since then, the panel has come back into court to listen to a tape of Bonds’s trainer discussing the banned drugs he said he was supplying Bonds, and a read-back of testimony by Bonds’ former personal shopper, who said she saw the trainer give Bonds an injection.

But other than that, the smoke signals have been few. Of course, in criminal trials, ties go to the defense — a conflicted jury in most instances won’t muster the votes to convict.

That said, to read too much into the jury’s pace might be a mistake.

“I’m guessing the prosecutors are starting to get antsy with no verdict yet; however, there’s been no note to the judge to suggest that further deliberations are futile,” said criminal defense lawyer William P. Keanem to the NYT. “To me, tomorrow is kind of the trigger day. If nothing happens by late Wednesday afternoon, you have to think something is up.”