I know I haven’t been posting updates on the Bell trial, but there’s a reason for that: the jury has been deliberating for the better part of a week.
Yesterday morning, the jury sent a note to the judge stating they were deadlocked. And another juror sent a note to the judge stating that one of the jurors had been doing “outside research” on the case. This is a Bad Thing.
The same juror made a tearful request Monday to be removed from the panel because she felt others were picking on her. Kennedy told the woman that although discussions can get heated, it was important to continue deliberating.
On Thursday, however, the juror again broke into tears and said she had spoken with her daughter about “the abuse I have suffered.” She said her daughter told her, “Mom, they’re trying to find the weak link.”
The woman said she had turned to the Internet to better understand the rules about jury deliberations and came across the word “coercion.” After her daughter helped her look up the word’s definition, she wrote it down on a piece of paper and brought it with her to court. When the judge asked to see the paper she went into the jury room to retrieve it.
That juror, known as “Juror #3”, has been dismissed and replaced with an alternate juror. The judge has told the jury to restart deliberations, and to pretend that the earlier deliberations never happened.
It kind of sounds like #3 was leaning towards acquittal, but nobody knows for sure.