Lawyers for Naeem Williams say the federal court jury responsible for determining whether the former Schofield Barracks soldier lives or dies for killing his 5-year-old daughter Talia is taking too long to decide and want the judge to either declare a mistrial or choose a sentence of life in prison.
The lawyers also say they have information that at least one of the jurors may have violated the court’s instruction to avoid media coverage and conversation about the case outside their deliberations and thus may have to be replaced.
One of the federal prosecutors in the case says the jurors are methodically and diligently performing their duty and should be allowed to continue deliberating because there is no indication they are deadlocked.
The jurors are scheduled to return to court for their seventh day of deliberation Thursday.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright has scheduled a Wednesday court hearing on the request for mistrial or directed verdict.
Williams, 34, is facing a possible death sentence for killing Talia on July 16, 2005, in military family quarters at Wheeler Army Airfield through child abuse and after months of torturing her.
In their legal papers filed Monday, defense lawyers contend "the length of deliberations here stands out as extraordinary" given that the jurors have just two options from which to chose, death or life in prison. They also say that the six days of deliberation is "unusually long compared with other recent federal capital cases."
Williams’s lawyers say if the court does not feel that a mistrial or court verdict for life in prison is warranted, then it should at least question the 12 jurors individually to ask them whether they have been exposed to outside influence or information on days they were not in deliberation and whether there is a reasonable probability that they can reach a unanimous verdict if they continue deliberating.
Federal prosecutor Steven Mellin said in papers he filed with the court Tuesday that the jurors have not said they are deadlocked. He said asking them whether they will be able to reach a unanimous verdict at this point is premature and "could possibly coerce a verdict."
Mellin said there is no need for the court to declare a mistrial or issue its own verdict because both will have the same result as a deadlocked jury.
He said the other recent federal capital cases Williams and his lawyers are using for comparison were much shorter, had fewer penalty phase witnesses and had nowhere near the number of mitigating factors they asked the current jury to consider.
The notes the jurors have sent to the court so far "indicate a methodical analysis that seems to track this court’s instructions," Mellin said.
On June 12 the jurors sent the court a note with a question about the list of 149 proposed mitigating factors Williams wants them to consider. The following day they had a question about one of seven aggravating factors prosecutors want them to consider.
On Thursday the jurors had another question on one of the proposed mitigating factors. And on Friday, when Seabright gave them the choice of resuming their deliberation on Wednesday or Thursday, they sent him a note choosing Thursday.
