4.Defense Rests, State Offers No Rebuttal, and Jury Is Excused

THE COURT: All right. Members of the jury, that concludes the evidence portion of this trial. I have a couple of notices to read to you.

I can tell you that the parties informed me earlier today that they expected the evidence to end some time early this afternoon. They have also requested that they have tomorrow to prepare closing arguments and address some other matters that must be addressed before we have jury instructions and closing arguments of the parties and I have granted that request.

So I'm going to, at this time, excuse you for the rest of the day and also notify you that you won't have to report to court tomorrow. You should report at the normal time on Wednesday morning. And when you get here we will then proceed with final jury instructions and also closing arguments of the parties.

I do have a few notices to read to you before I excuse you for the day. As you know, the Court's decision not to sequester the jury during the trial is dependent on the jurors not listening to, watching, or reading any news accounts of the case, nor discussing it with anyone including members of your family or other jurors.

For these reasons it is vital that you do not listen to any conversation about the case, do not read any newspaper or internet reports, or listen to any news reports on the radio or television about this trial.

To assure that you are not exposed to improper media coverage, the Court has ordered that, for the duration of the trial, that you do not watch the local news on television, nor listen to the news on radio, nor read any newspaper accounts, unless you first have someone remove any articles about this case from the newspaper.

In addition, do not visit any internet websites or web logs which may include any information about the case. I should add at this point that although the evidence portion of the trial is complete, the Court's order remains in affect. It is especially important at this time that you not be exposed to any information about the case.

The Court is asking that for those of you who are employed, that you not report to work tomorrow. I will make sure that you get paid a full day's jury pay, even though we're not asking you to be here tomorrow because of the request that I'm making.

Make sure that you do not disclose your status as a juror to anyone, if anyone attempts to discuss the case with you, politely but firmly notify them that you are prohibited from discussing the case. If you are involuntarily exposed to any information about the case from any source, take steps to immediately avoid any further exposure.

Should you be exposed to any reports or communications from any source concerning the case during the trial, or should you become aware of anything that you believe may affect your ability to serve as a juror, you should not discuss your concerns with any jurors, but report any concerns to the jury bailiff.

I also have a -- prepared a memo, which the jury bailiff will give to you before you leave today. There is a copy for each of you. As I think the parties disclosed during the jury selection process, it's difficult to predict -- difficult to predict how long jury deliberations may take, as disclosed in the memo, the Court is requesting that you pack some luggage, overnight belongings, in the event deliberations go on for more than a day and it's required that you stay over.

If deliberations do go on more than a day, we'll put you up at a hotel, make sure you get all your meals taken care of and everything else. There is further information in the memo that you will be receiving. With that I'm going to excuse you for today.