The jury in the George Huguely murder trial began deliberating this morning at 9:23 AM. I know some of the jurors personally, and I can tell you that the ones that I know will be thorough and will not rush to a verdict. The care with which they are approaching the deliberations can be seen in the fact that the jury sent out a question after about an hour, asking what the word “reason” meant in the jury instruction on malice. That instruction reads as follows:
Malice is that state of mind which results in the intentional doing of a wrongful act to another without legal excuse or justification, at a time when the mind of the actor is under the control of reason. Malice may result from any unlawful or unjustifiable motive including anger, hatred or revenge. Malice may be inferred from any deliberate willful and cruel act against another, however sudden.
Heat of passion excludes malice when that heat of passion arises from provocation that reasonably produces an emotional state of mind such as hot blood, rage, anger, resentment, terror or fear so as to demonstrate an absence of deliberate design to kill, or to cause one to act on impulse without conscious reflection. Heat of passion must be determined from circumstances as they appeared to defendant but those circumstances must be such as would have aroused heat of passion in a reasonable person.
If a person acts upon reflection or deliberation, or after his passion has cooled or there has been a reasonable time or opportunity for cooling, then the act is not attributable to heat of passion.
What does it mean for a mind to be “under the control of reason”? That will be what they have to focus on. And there is no legal language that is any more helpful than what they already have.
I have also been asked by friends and press people, “How long will they deliberate?” All I can do is to repeat the rule of thumb that U.S. District Court James H. Michael used — figure on 1 hour for every day of testimony. That would suggest about 7 to 8 hours of deliberation. They had pizzas brought in so that they could work through lunch, and I expect that they will have other food brought in at dinner time if they are still going.
You can expect Judge Hogshire to push them to try to get to a decision on guilt or innocence today, but if the jury sends out a note saying “We’re exhausted and we want to go home,” he’ll let them go home until tomorrow.
