Waiting Period after Closing Arguments
This is Wagoner County attorney Stuart Ericson. We’ve been talking about jury trials and now we’re all the way to the end. The closing arguments are done. So now it’s, I guess I’ll call this the waiting time.
You know, I’ve been in jury trials where the jury, you know, has been out for 45 minutes and comes back with a verdict. And of course I’ve been in jury trials where they’ve been out for hours and hours and hours. And sometimes jurors can be out overnight and spend days deciding.
And as the defense attorney and you as the defendant, as the client or a family member, yeah, it’s kind of excruciating. You just wait, you know, you do not know what’s going to come back. And that’s a tough time waiting for that verdict to come back.
Verdict Notification and Reading
And when it comes back, they notify the judge and the clerk and then they reach out to the parties, to the attorneys and get everybody back in the courtroom. The judge will generally ask the foreperson sometimes if they want to read the verdict or if they want the judge to do it and then they decide.
And then basically the judge or the foreperson will read the verdict. You know, we, the jury find the defendant charged with first degree murder, we find the defendant guilty or not guilty. Yeah, it’s a stressful time. You know, every attorney who’s tried jury trials has had it gone both ways, had not guilty verdicts and guilty verdicts. And it’s a tough time.
Post-Verdict Sentencing
That truly ends the jury trial portion. The jury recommends a sentence and then there might be a sentencing date later where judges generally confirm if the jury is going to give 20 years, you know, most likely the judge is going to come back at sentencing time and give 20 years. So that is kind of how jury trials go.
Initial Strategy Session
If you have any questions about that, reach out to me, a criminal defense lawyer in Oklahoma, at wagonerlawyer.com.