Wright trial: Thursday
4:00
Jury asks to go home for the day. They will return for a fourth day of deliberations, beginning at 9 a.m. Friday.
3:47 p.m.
Judge calls the jury into the courtroom and asks them to resume deliberations. They go back into the jury room. He gave them the choice to break for the day. No word if they're taking him up on it. There won't be a partial verdict at this point.
3:33 p.m.
The jury's note said, in part: "This is not a note that states we are giving up, but rather a request for guidance that would allow us to move forward in a productive manner." Judge Robreno is discussing with the lawyers whether the jurors believe that it's useful to keep going. Robreno said he could give the jury the choice to render a partial verdict, and to go back and continue deliberations and the remaining counts.
3:16 p.m.
The jury's note says they have reached a unanimous verdict on 58 percent of the counts, and are deadlocked for the moment on the other 42 percent. The note said the jury isn't ready to "give up" on those other counts, but is looking for some "guidance" form the judge on how to deliberate "productively" going forward.
There are 38 counts broken up among the four defendents, so that means the jurors have reached a verdict on 22 counts, and still have 16 counts to resolve. This has caused a stir among defendants and they're lawyers. Robreno is likely to tell the jury to go back, listen to each other, keep and open mind, and keep at it. The Judge has not returned to the bench yet.
--------------------------------------
3:11 p.m.
The jury just sent out a note with another question. No verdict yet; we're awaiting the question.
--------------------------------------
10:41
Anyone with a little spare time in the U.S. District Courthouse at 6th and Market is going to make their way to the 17th floor to witness the spectacle of the Vince Fumo trial. This includes the defendants in this case -- Chris Wright, Andy Teitelman, Hardeep Chawla and Ravi Chawla, all of whom have sat in on Fumo testimony (Dick Sprague was a popular witness yesterday) as their jury deliberates on the 11th Floor.
--------------------------------------
Deliberations in the public corruption trial of City Council aide Chris Wright enter the third day today. Jurors arrived at 9 a.m. with requests for 13 exhibits. The exhibits deal with contact between the brothers Hardeep and Ravi Chawla and Wright, legal work done for Wright by lawyer Andy Teitelman, the state disclosure law, and a transcript of a conversation that Wright's boss, Councilman Jack Kelly, recorded with Ravi Chawla. Judge Eduardo C. Robreno came out to discuss the note at 10:08 a.m. and will send the exhibits back with one exception, a piece of evidence that was not admitted at trial.
Click here for Philly.com's politics page.