CNN legal analyst Elie Honig provided insights into the jury deliberations in Donald Trump’s porn star hush money trial, discussing potential scenarios for the verdict.
As the jury deliberated, Honig described the tense atmosphere in the deliberation room, emphasizing the jurors’ isolation and the importance of unanimity in reaching a verdict. He explained that each of the 34 counts in the indictment would require a separate verdict, possibly leading to a split decision.
“It’s tense. It’s nerve-wracking because you don’t know anything. Here’s what’s happening now. The judge has given the jury their final instructions. Took about an hour this morning. And now what’s happening is these 12 people are alone in a room. There’s no court reporter, there’s no judge, there’s nobody else. The alternates have been split off in case of emergency,” Honig replied, adding:
Now, juror number one is the foreperson. In a lot of courts, the first thing the jury does is elect a foreperson. But, in New York state court, it automatically is juror number one. There’s no magic powers associated with the foreperson. That’s who will communicate with the judge. And usually, that’s who will lead the deliberations. Now crucial point, they have to be unanimous to reach a verdict. Guilty has to be 12-0. Not guilty has to be 12-0. Anything other than that 11-1, 6-6. That is not a verdict. Now they’re working off the indictment which we know charges of falsifying business records in the first degree.
Now there’s 34 different counts of this. And I want to make this point because it’s really important the jury is going to return not a verdict but 34 verdicts. They’re going to have to consider each count 11 invoices, 12 vouchers, 11 checks separately. And it’s possible we see a split verdict. It’s possible they find guilty on 20. Not guilty on the remaining 14. One possibility that I just want to flag. It is possible if the jury wants to split it. Nine of the checks are signed directly by Donald Trump himself. So if they do end up splitting it, it could be that they split along that, those nine counts, perhaps guilty, the rest not guilty.
Honig noted that nine of the charges directly involved Donald Trump’s signature, which could influence the jury’s decision-making process. He also discussed the possibility of an Allen charge, where the judge urges the jury to strive for unanimity, potentially breaking a deadlock.
Responding to a question about the timeline for a verdict, Honig emphasized the uncertainty of jury deliberations, citing examples of cases ranging from one hour to eight days. He highlighted the opaque nature of the deliberation process and the anticipation surrounding the eventual outcome.
“All the potential charges we get reporting earlier in the day that the defense team, Trump’s team, was concerned about a potential Allen charge, which would potentially come back from Judge Merchan if the jury tells him, hey, we’re stuck. They’re concerned that the Allen charge may lead to some of the holdouts that don’t want to convict Donald Trump to compromise and then that would create a scenario in which they would split charges. How realistic is that?” Sanchez asked.
“Oh, Allen charges absolutely happened. If we get a note saying we’re stuck at a certain point, the judge doesn’t just say, okay, that’s it, everyone go home. Then the judge brings out the heavy artillery and says, okay, folks, it is your job, if humanly possible, to work together to reach unanimity,” Honing replied, adding:
It’s your duty if you can get there. And if you don’t do it. By the way, jury, we’re just going to have to do this all again with the next jury. It works. Not always, but a lot of times it can break a deadlock. And Boris, I just want to anticipate a question that’s on the mind probably of a lot of viewers. Yeah. When? right. Well I mean it’s obvious when we don’t know.
But I’ll just tell you my personal experience. I’ve seen juries come back in one hour. We’re already past that mark. I’ve seen I hate to say this. I’ve seen a jury take eight full days of deliberation. So we don’t know. They’re not told how long they’re expected. This is the sort of black box of our criminal justice process. We don’t know what happens in that room. We’ll get little hints here and there, and then we will probably see a result at some point.
