An interesting thing happened today around 3 PM as the jury deliberated in my case.

I and my attorney were told to stay within a fifteen minute radius as noted in the earlier today blog in case of a verdict or if the jury had a question.

It turns out the jury had a question at the time noted above. The question itself may give some insight into the jury's deliberations for those of you who are good at that sort of thing.

The jury's question was (paraprasing, I'm sure), "Can we consider whistleblower laws in our deliberations?"

Pretty interesting, huh? The judge took away our whole necessity/whistleblower defense, yet somehow the jury seems to be seeing the true nature of the case. Perhaps they see the case as I see it--as a not too thinly veiled attempt at whistleblower retaliation by Boeing and Dan Satterberg, the new King County Attorney Boeing and Perkins Coie were instrumental in installing after Norm Maleng's death.

What is somewhat amusing in this is that it was the Deputy Prosecutor, Scott Peterson, who brought up the fact I was a whistleblower most frequently, although his derisive tone in branding me as such must have telegraphed to the jury. I believe I only mentioned it in testimony once, when I said answered something to the effect of "during my attempts to blow the whistle on Boeing."

Of course, if you've read my previous blogs on the trial, you already know what the judge told the jury--she gave them a one word answer--simply the word "no." The jury then presumably deliberated for another hour after that before the customary time of quitting, 4 PM. The judge's answer may have been one of the few correct rulings she's made thusfar, in my humble opinion, although I'm told that the answer "consider the law as presented to you in court" is the correct answer, rather than weighing in at all either way so as to not bias the jury. As the judge is apparently not following that precedent, she simply told them to stop considering the fact I was a whistleblower, via her unambiguously on which side of the issue she was answer.

I'm told that a verdict would probably be returned this week, although I'm surprised the jury went home today without a verdict.

Tomorrow I have to be before the judge at 9 AM in order to put the jury's question and the judge's answer officially on the record. Then the fifteen minute radius wait continues.

I now have some pretty high hopes and respect for the jury, trying to find a way out of the biasedly drawn box the judge and prosecutor have put me in so that they return a guilty verdict. I think they are smart enough to know the bias of the court, and will ultimately return a verdict per the law, not just how the prosecutor and Boeing want the verdict to be, which any first year law student I think could tell isn't per the law in my case.