Late Night Jury Deliberations OK’d

In a criminal trial the jury wanted to deliberate late into the night. The closing arguments were concluded at 9:20 p.m., and the jury returned its verdict shortly after midnight –Guilty. Earlier in the afternoon (around 4:00 p.m.), defense counsel had requested the trial be adjourned and resumed the next day so that the jury would have enough time review all the evidence. The trial judge asked the jury what they wanted to do and they decided to work into the night. Two jurors had to go to work the next day.

While noting its agreement with the general propostion that jury trials should not continue late into the evening, the First District Court of Appeal in Green v. State, 951 So. 2d 962 (Fla. 1 DCA 2007), affirmed the jury’s verdict because the trial judge had asked the jurors what they wanted to do, and the court repeatedly checked their mental state to make sure they could continue with their deliberations. The Court distinguished the leading case of Ferrer v. State, 718 So. 2d 822 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) because in Ferrer defense counsel had objected to proceeding late into the evening on the grounds that counsel was too fatigued to serve as competent counsel and that he was not physically able to proceed. That was not the case here because defense counsel never argued that she was unable to provide adequate legal representation, and it did not appear that her performance was affected in any way by the court’s decision to proceed with the trial.