The defence lawyer in Harvey Weinstein's sex crime retrial has claimed that some jurors are ganging up and prodding others to change their minds, and citing information that was not part of the trial.
"They fight together, and I don't like it," the foreperson said, according to defence lawyer Arthur Aidala, in a closed-door conversation with Judge Curtis Farber and the prosecution and defence teams in New York.
Mr Aidala later said in court - without any jurors in earshot - that the foreperson indicated that he has made a decision and did not want to change his mind.
Mr Aidala implored Judge Farber to declare a mistrial, calling it a "tainted jury" and a "runaway jury".
"People are considering things that were not brought into this trial as evidence," Mr Aidala argued.
Jurors, he said, "are pushing people to change their minds. It's not fair. They are talking about the past. It’s not about the past".
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo argued that the juror’s concerns did not warrant a mistrial, noting that some aspects of Weinstein’s past were allowed into evidence.
They included some accusers who recounted seeing a groundswell of allegations against Weinstein in the news media in 2017.
Judge Farber denied the mistrial request but brought jurors in for a reminder that they must only weigh evidence presented during the trial and must disregard anything else they may know about the former movie mogul.
At the jury’s request, he also went over the definition of reasonable doubt and rules about conducting deliberations, requests that suggested they remained far apart on a verdict.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of committing a criminal sex act and one count of rape.
The jury of seven women and five men began deliberating on Thursday.
The foreperson signalled his concerns in a note to the judge on Monday just after jurors returned to court for a third day of deliberations.
He wrote that he wanted to speak to the judge "about a situation that isn’t very good".
Judge Farber decided to hear the foreperson’s concerns in his robing room, outside the view of reporters, the public and Weinstein, who waived his right to sit in on the private discussion.
The judge later said he held the conversation in private "solely for purposes of enabling that juror to speak freely".
A transcript of the conversation will be made available, the judge said.
In another signal of divided sensibilities among jurors, another one asked to speak to the court before the judge and lawyers had even resolved how to address the foreperson’s complaint.
And that juror, who was soon brought into court solo, gave an update.
"I think things are going well today," said the woman. "We’re making headway."
She noted that the "tone is very different" from Friday when another juror asked to be excused because he felt other jurors were treating one member of the panel in an "unfair and unjust" way.
The judge told that juror, a young man, that he had to keep deliberating and also denied a defence request for a mistrial over the issue.
After the third juror gave the court her impressions Monday, deliberations continued for roughly an hour before the jury contacted the court again.
This time, the panel wanted, among other things, to re-hear a psychologist’s testimony about why sexual assault victims may continue to have relationships with their attackers.
The psychologist did not treat any of Weinstein’s accusers but gave evidence for prosecutors as an expert.
Weinstein was originally convicted in New York in 2020 of rape and sexual assault against two women in a verdict considered a landmark in the #MeToo movement.
But the conviction was subsequently overturned, leading to his retrial, with an additional accuser added last year, before a new jury and a different judge.
Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape.
Source: Press Association
