Juries, the longer the better for the defendant?

[Ihopeyourcakeisshit]

Just musing over the Ghislaine Maxwell trial and wondering if there is any evidence regarding whether an extended length of deliberation is more favourable for the defendant?

In the UK a jury deliberating for that long would mean they were unlikely to return a verdict and it would be likely the whole trial would have to be done again. No idea how it works in America though.

No in every case look at OJ !

I was thinking about this when I got called for Jury Duty a few years ago. Imagine if you got one of those super complicated tax trials like the Guinness that went on forever. You’d probably be more likely to agree with the majority just to get it over with.

I know nothing about the American legal system, but presumably they are on a Christmas break

But the GM jury isn't deliberating all this time. They were sent home for Christmas .

I was on a rape trial which went for a couple of days, then we deliberated for several days on top of that. The length of the deliberations wasn't an indication that we were going to let the person walk free - it just reflected that there was a lot of evidence and we took our task seriously and didn't just rush through it. I don't see any reason why the GM jury would rush - there were a lot of witnesses so the jury had a lot to think about .

I know they've had a Christmas break
Like I said, it was musings which made me wonder about jury deliberation statistics in general..

In Scotland
The longer the jury's out they're more likely to come back with a NOT PROVEN verdict 🙁🙁

Is that the same as not guilty?

Not the same but has the same impact (accused goes free without conviction). I was on a jury which returned a not proven verdict - we were all convinced the accused was guilty but there wasn't enough evidence to convict.

Ah, so you'd leave under a bit of a cloud then.
Very interesting.

No, it's not.
"Not Proven" verdict is widely regarded as an acquittal used when the judge or jury does not have enough evidence to convict but is not sufficiently convinced of the accused person's innocence to bring in a "not guilty" verdict.

I have to be honest and say before I served on that jury I didn't agree with the not proven as an option. I now completely understand why it exists but don't necessarily think it's a good thing! I'd be interested to see if there's a correlation between not proven verdicts and future convictions for a similar crime.

The evil bastard that murdered dd walked free on a Not Proven verdict. When the verdict was returned several of the jury refused to look at us. I wanted them to look at me. He laughed his head off when the verdict was announced.
He had convictions before and after. I would see him in my home town.
He died of a drug overdose 4 years later sadly no one murdered him.

Oh Bloody Hell, ParkheadParadise That's terrible.
I'm sorry to have stirred up such awful memories for you.

ParkheadParadise I am so sorry to hear that

I've just looked at The Independent. They have resumed deliberating today. That's Day 4. So no Bank Holiday for Christmas in the US