Dixon jurors press on, with Thanksgiving a day away 

Posted: 11:17 pm Tue, November 24, 2009
By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

University of Baltimore School of Law professor Jose F. Anderson has a cautionary tale for any defendant waiting on a jury as a holiday approaches.

Anderson represented Flint Gregory Hunt, whose death sentence for killing a police officer had been vacated, when Hunt was resentenced in December 1988. The jury came back on Dec. 21 — the Wednesday before Christmas weekend.

“I didn’t feel good about it. That’s all I can tell you,” Anderson recalled this week. “I didn’t feel good about [the jury] being pressed against the holiday.”

Indeed, the jury brought anything but tidings of joy for Hunt. He was executed just after midnight on July 2, 1997.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon obviously isn’t facing the same consequences as the jury considering gift-card theft and misappropriation charges against her enters its fifth day of deliberations in Baltimore City Circuit Court. But, along with the charges against the mayor and the likely consequences of a conviction, the jury also has to have turkey, family and the long holiday weekend in their thoughts.

Dale P. Kelberman, one of Dixon’s lawyers, shrugged when asked Tuesday afternoon about the effect of the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend.

“They’re like the rest of us,” he said. “They know it’s a holiday weekend.”

Baltimore criminal defense attorney Jerry Tarud, who’s participated in upwards of 100 jury trials, said some juries feel pressured to render a verdict before a long weekend, or any weekend.

But not this jury, he says.

“They’ve already been out a few days,” said Tarud, referring to last weekend’s break in deliberations.

He said the jury seems to be taking their duty very seriously.

“I’ve never had a theft case go this long. I’ve never had a felony where a jury deliberated for four days. Never,” Tarud said. “My hat’s off to ’em.”

Another veteran litigator, Brian Brown of Saul Kerpelman’s lead-paint litigation firm, had his own stories to tell.

In one lead paint case, the judge offered the jury the option of taking the case at 4 p.m. on a Friday or coming back on Monday.
“They said we’ll come back Monday, we’ll need lots of time,” Brown said. That Monday, “They were out maybe 45 minutes and came back with [a verdict of] $7.6 million. So who knows?”

In another case, Brown was representing a car crash plaintiff before retired Judge Thomas Ward and lost.

“[Ward] basically said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. I’m not telling you have to come back on Monday but I’m telling you that if you’re not done by 4:30 you are coming back on Monday because we’re all going home,’” Brown recalled. “So guess what happened? At 4:25, knock on the door: They had their verdict.”

Andrew Radding had a similar experience.

“The jury made it clear they would have a result before the holiday weekend, and they did,” said Radding, a member of Adelberg, Rudow, Dorf & Hendler LLC in Baltimore.

He expects the Dixon jurors will “intensify” deliberations Wednesday morning to reach a verdict so they can enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday.

“I would bet the jurors don’t want this hanging over their heads,” he said.

Whether deliberations continue beyond Wednesday may depend on Visiting Judge Dennis M. Sweeney and his sense of where jurors are in the decision-making process, according to retired Judge John F. Fader II.

“It’s all about sizing up the jury,” said Fader, who is also a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.

Fader noted the jurors have not been hesitant ask Sweeney to be dismissed for the day — as they did Tuesday afternoon — so they might be comfortable reconvening Monday if necessary.

As for worries about jurors violating their duties to not discuss the case outside of the deliberation room, Fader has personally witnessed wives refuse to talk with husbands about a jury’s work.

“I would assume most of the jurors would do what the judge tells them to do,” Fader said.

For his part, Sweeney met with lawyers on both sides at 4 p.m. Tuesday to discuss scheduling. A half-hour later, right before bringing the jury in to dismiss them for the day, Sweeney dryly gave his take on the jury’s status.

“At lunchtime, they had pizza … one pepperoni, one plain and one vegetarian,” he said. “Read into that what you may. It’s probably as good as anything people are reading into.”