21
2003
On Monday, bright and reasonably early, the Quattrone jury returned to deliberate.
One guy was missing. The wife of juror No. 6 -- no names until this thing is over -- had gone into labor. So court was cancelled for two days.
That doesn't mean there was a break in the action, however. The word "mistrial" practically lept out of Quattrone attorney John Keker's mouth.
Try as he might -- and Keker argued hard -- Judge Richard Owen is not a man who caves easily. No mistrial. He told the jury they'd take a few days off and, if all was well with the juror's wife, they'd return Wednesday. He's kept that stance through two days, on and off, of hard-fought arguments with the lawyers.
Most of the legal wrangling took place behind closed doors. So, to find out what was going on, we had to order transcripts. Which we did. So we all have the same quotes down to the punctuation.
Before all that hard cutting and pasting -- woops, I mean reporting -- we had to have a new pool. The last ones, calling for Friday verdicts and no babies, were clearly out of date. The new pool asks for outcome (acquital, conviction or mistrial), a time and, naturally, the sex of Baby Juror No. 6. At least one person suggested the baby be called Boutros.
So far, I'm one and nil, having gotten the sex correctly. Henry Lee joined us sometime in the past 48 hours. The trial resumes tomorow and, never fear, The Post plans a birth announcement.
There's lots of funny stuff in these transcripts. There always is when a bunch of men stand around and talk about pregnancy. The judge -- who is 81 and tough as nails -- was very sweet and funny. When the judge's kids were born, he told the juror, he and his wife had to find a special hospital that would let him be with her during her labor. "I don't have much of a choice," the juror told the judge, sounding just like a first-time dad.
There's media criticism, too. Keker complained to the judge that my Sunday piece was "truly nasty." I got to read about that in the New York Times and transcript.
Man, this is living.