Jury Deliberation Drama: Stuck in Deliberation!

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]You wait on your verdict and 6 hours goes by and lo and behold the judge calls you back and says we're going to send them home for the day.

[00:00:08]And I'm like, can't we even get them pizza or something and see if they'll keep them? No, they don't want it.

[00:00:12]They're going home for the day. Come back the next day.

[00:00:15]Now we got a full 8 hours of debilitation deliberation.

[00:00:20]Come the 8 hours goes by and the judge calls us back and says, look, no questions, no nothing.

[00:00:25]They're going home for the day again.

[00:00:28]All right, come back the next day and you know, 10:00 a.m. on the next day they come out and they've got a question.

[00:00:33]What do we do if we can't reach a decision?

[00:00:39]Tough.

[00:00:41]And typically what happens in Ohio, I can't remember the name of the federal case, in Ohio we call it a Howard charge.

[00:00:52]A Howard charge is basically a jury instruction where it says look you guys are the jury.