The jury in the Karen Read murder case continues to struggle to reach a consensus, writing in a note to Judge Beverly Cannone Monday morning that they are "deeply divided by fundamental differences in our opinions and state of mind."
Judge Cannone said she had never seen a note like the one she received Monday, and it prompted her to read a set of instructions to the jurors known as the Tuey-Rodriguez charge.
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These special instructions are read by a judge at their discretion, when a jury remains in a state of deadlock. The text read by the judge essentially sends jurors back to deliberation with a series of reminders — namely that it is their "duty to decide this case if you can do so conscientiously," and that there is no reason to believe another set of jurors would be more competent to decide a case.
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Footnotes included in the instruction provide some direction as to when they should be read to a jury that cannot decide a verdict. The note states that, "it is appropriate for the judge to give such a charge when a jury is deadlocked, but because it 'has a certain 'sting' to it,' it should not be given prematurely, and digression from the recommended language is discouraged."
Judge Cannone read the full text of the charge to the jurors, and sent them back to the deliberation table.
You can read a 2009 copy of the instructions here. The version that Judge Cannone read Monday morning had slight variations to it to make it applicable to the case at hand.
