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Al-Arian jury extends its deliberation time

Jurors say they will work through Dec. 8 and have not expressed any problems with their work to the court.

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published December 1, 2005

TAMPA - After nine days of deliberations spanning three weeks, jurors in the federal trial of Sami Al-Arian told the judge on Wednesday they expect to continue working toward a verdict through Dec. 8.

The jury notifies the judge week-by-week of its upcoming schedule. If they haven't reached a decision by Dec. 8, they will have deliberated for 15 days.

"There has to be some serious disagreement in that jury room," said Texas jury expert Robert Hirschhorn.

But jurors have yet to express confusion or disagreement to the court.

Their reticence could be the result of attempting to work out differences on their own. Or it could be that they're proceeding slowly and methodically through an extremely complicated 51-count indictment, which required 95 pages of jury instructions.

Jurors must decide if the former University of South Florida professor and three co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Ballut and Hatem Fariz, conspired to raise money for the violent acts of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for hundreds of deaths in Israel and the occupied territories.

Defense attorneys say the money raised by their clients went to charity in the occupied territories. Prosecutors say it was funneled through the PIJ, and while not traceable, had to have furthered the violent goals of the organization.

During the trial, which lasted more than five months, jurors listened to more than 80 witnesses ranging from a U.S. immigration clerk to a Palestinian legislator to the father of an American girl killed by the PIJ in Israel. They also read almost 400 transcripts of defendants' phone conversations and faxes secretly recorded by the FBI over nine years. And, they looked at hundreds of boxes of confiscated documents and videos, as well as records of money transfers, which involved the flow of almost $2-million between Middle Eastern countries and the United States.

During deliberations, jurors can re-examine this evidence by going between the jury room and the nearby courtroom, where it is kept in dozens and dozens of bankers boxes on long tables. Then, they must match what they review with the 51 counts, ever mindful of the jury instructions and the four different defendants.

Nevertheless, says Hirschhorn, by now, jurors have had time to review the evidence.

"The handwriting on the wall says "hung jury,"' he said.

Earlier in the day, presiding U.S. District Judge James S. Moody turned down a defense motion for a mistrial that had nothing to do with a jury disagreement. The motion was based upon jury access to Internet poll results that appeared in the Tampa Tribune . Jurors are provided with censored newspapers by court personnel, who remove stories about the case at hand. A small reference to the poll was overlooked. The poll said that 87 percent of 1,225 people who participated in the online survey believed that Al-Arian would be found guilty.

In his order, Moody wrote: "One of the jurors saw the poll and brought it to the attention of the Court Security Officer, who in turn brought it to the attention of the Court. The poll was thereafter removed and the paper was returned to the jury. ... The Court ... denies the motion."

Jury deliberations continued throughout the day Wednesday and, if the new schedule for deliberations is any indication, jurors will be meeting through this week and the next.

--Times staff writer Meg Laughlin can be reached at 813 226-3365 or mlaughlin@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 01:06:06]