Jodi Arias Jury - How Long Will They Take?

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The most common question I get now is how long will the verdict take in the Jodi Arias case?  The 3 alternates were chosen late last Friday and the final 12 went into deliberate. They returned to the courthouse this morning at 9 Arizona time. 

Crime writer Camille Kimball at Jodi Arias courthouse. Somewhere in that huddle is Jane Velez Mitchell

People hoping for a Murder in the 1st Degree conviction seem to feel the jurors have had the case for 4 months already, they must be eager to take their vote and get on with their lives. 

The Serial Shooter jury in Phoenix sat in trial for 6 months. They even had Dale Hausner's accomplice, Sam Dieteman, testify against him. Yet they took 3 weeks in deliberations. 

They finally returned with 6 death penalties and dozens of other guilty verdicts for Hausner. 

Marjorie Orbin's jury sat in trial for 9 months. Yes, nine.  But they did not return with their verdict in the space of an afternoon. It took about a week for them to convict her of the gruesome murder of her husband. 

Up in Yavapai County, the jury for Law of Attraction guru James Arthur Ray also sat in trial for months, but did not return a first day verdict.

In talking to jurors from trials like these, after it's all over, you hear how solemnly they take their duty of depriving a fellow human being of liberty or life. 

After the many months of trial, months during which the rest of us are free to opine and vent to our heart's content, the jurors have direly pent up emotions. They have not been allowed to review testimony or evidence with each other during the trial, nor with anyone else, not even their spouses. 

Juror #5 on Jodi's jury was let go precisely because the defense successfully argued she had revealed an opinion. 

Jurors haven't had the freedom of Jean Casarez & Jane Velez Mitchell to share their opinions on Jodi Arias

So what tends to happen on the first day in the privacy and freedom of the deliberation room at last is a spewing forth of emotions and opinions. The discussion, such as it is, will be chaotic and emotional. Only later, when the 12 have been able to process their feelings about the gruesome photos they have seen and the hours of testimony they have sat through with poker faces, will they get down to work.

This, I have often seen, is the time when the awesome responsibility of what they are about to do sets in. In the Arizona juries in the above cases, rather than simply taking a vote, they systematically start going through the evidence. They make sure they each understand an item and they will deliberate on its meaning. 

And then something similar occurs with the jury instructions, too. They may read and re-read different portions of the instruction, persuading each other along the way. 

Some juries have only one or two members who feel differently than the rest. Such a jury may spend many days trying to bring those one or two around to the majority position, may spend more days fretting with each other about the consequences of failing to reach a unanimous decision, and even more days hammering out a compromise using lesser charges.

Taking on the burden of having an actual vote in a case like is very different from watching it on TV or even from the gallery inside the courtroom, as I do. They know that some information has been kept from them and they want to make sure they do the right thing. I've had jurors come to my book signings and beg for more information about what happened when they are sent out of the room (which is the more typical procedure than what we've seen in the Jodi Arias trial where the jury stays put and the lawyers approach the bench while white noise is played on loud speakers in the courtroom). 

Jurors also want to review their own feelings and make sure they are not making a decision based on the personalities of the lawyers or even of the defendant or victim. They want to make sure they understand the law. 

Many of them will live with the case--and their own vote--for the rest of their lives. Some will seek therapy. Some will seek out the victims or the defendant and bond,

So, in my experience, it would be surprising if the jury in the Jodi Arias case had come back Monday morning or even Friday afternoon. I would expect them to take at least most or all of one day. Even if they reach a decision quickly, many will want to sleep on it before casting a vote. 

It's impossible to predict what any specific jury will do. Add to all of the above the mix of 12 strangers with individual personalities who may or may not be able to work together once they get down to business.

In the Fife Symington jury, a former Arizona governor convicted of fraud, it turned out one member was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. This went undetected during the selection process, but manifest in deliberations with her sometimes bizarre and obstinate behavior. 

When will Jodi's jury come back? The old saw that the longer deliberations take, the more it favors the defense has never been true in my experience. One of the quickest juries I ever saw was for Elizabeth Johnson in the Baby Gabriel case. That one was a victory for the defendant. But I only attend one trial at a time from a field of a nearly infinite number of trials so take it for what it's worth. But don't despair of the verdict you may be hoping for because 12 pent up people didn't take an immediate vote.