News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. Back in the jury room. So how this all unfolded, just after 11 00 a. M. , the jury did send a note to the court asking the judge, judge, what do we do if we cant come to a unanimous decision on one of the 18 counts. That implies that perhaps they have reached a decision unanimously on the other 17 counts, but they havent said that definitively. What the judge had to do was he had to come up with instructions to give the jury as it pertained to them going back and deliberating yet again. That just happened. In just the past few minutes, the judge instructed the jury, go back into the jury room and continue to work on that one final count. Try to continue to work, to come to some unanimous verdict on that one remaining count. Outside of the presence of the jury, the judge indicated that he might be prepared to accept a partial verdict if they werent able to come to a conclusion on that one remaining count that they seem to hav
but the judge, however, did not specifically instruct the jury that he d be willing to accept that partial verdict. that s important because he doesn t want the jury going back into the jury deliberation room saying, okay, well, why try that hard because this judge would, in fact, perhaps accept that partial verdict. this judge wants the jury to know that he is anticipating, hoping for a full verdict here. so again, just a few minutes ago, the jury going back into the deliberation room with the instructions from the judge, keep going at it, see if you can, in fact, reach a decision on this one count that s giving you trouble. and john, we don t know what that count is, but these are 18 complicated counts that include tax fraud, bank fraud, as well as issues around foreign bank accounts. so they ve been working on this pretty painstakingly. it s really the first we ve heard a substantial question from the jury since thursday. so we ll see as the time continues to tick forward what this