Fortune v. United States

GLICKMAN, Associate Judge:

Following a short trial in appellant’s first-degree murder prosecution the jury thrice reported itself deadlocked — stymied, it said in its second note to the court, by “a fundamental disagreement.” The third note, sent after more than eight hours of deliberation, informed the court that the jury was evenly split; that the jurors in each camp had “absolutely no doubt about their vote” on the question of appellant’s “guilt or innocence”; that despite “several attempts to consider the evidence objectively,” the jurors had “not been able to overcome this impasse”; and…