The length of time spent suggests that the jurors may have clashed on the complex decisions they face. They were expected to resume deliberations on Friday morning.
The jurors in the Derek Chauvin murder trial in Minneapolis deliberated in April for 10 hours. In 1995, a jury in the O.J. Simpson trial delivered a verdict in less than four hours. The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse case has been talking for 23 hours — and counting. After three days, the seven women and five men who are deciding Mr. Rittenhouse’s fate in a Kenosha courtroom have yet to reach a consensus, a strikingly long deliberation that suggests the jurors may have clashed on the weighty decisions before them. Mr. Rittenhouse,18, is on trial for first-degree intentional homicide and other charges after fatally shooting two men and maiming another during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020. He faces the possibility of life in prison. Mark Richards, a lawyer for Mr. Rittenhouse, seemed confounded by the length of the deliberations after court broke for the day on Thursday. “They’re either working to get a consensus — maybe they’re dead-even split,” Mr. Richards said of the jury as he left the courthouse. Throughout the building, there were few certainties, but much speculation. Mr. Richards said that when he looked at the faces of the jurors as they sat in the courtroom at the end of the day, he thought, “They’re six-six split.” Deliberations began on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the jurors sent notes to Judge Bruce Schroeder and requested videos so they could rewatch footage from all three shootings. On Thursday, there were few clues into the nature of their discussions, which are occurring behind closed doors in the Kenosha County Courthouse, the limestone building that was the center of demonstrations following the police shooting of Jacob Blake 15 months ago. The length of the deliberations could be an indication of the complexity of the charges the jury must sift through. In many murder trials, jurors are asked to decide whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty of a single count. But it is a complicated picture in Mr. Rittenhouse’s case. He faces five criminal counts: one count of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber,26; first-degree reckless homicide in the death of Joseph Rosenbaum,36; one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the shooting of Gaige Grosskreutz; and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment, for firing at Richie McGinniss and an unknown man.
