As John pointed out yesterday, Hunter Biden's Delaware trial on gun charges finished in what felt like record time without the First Son taking the stand to testify. That's fairly typical in this sort of case because a good defense attorney is unlikely to subject their client to cross-examination from the prosecution where Hunter would likely have done more harm than good. The jury instructions seemed unremarkable in this case, unlike the debacle we witnessed during Trump's trial in Manhattan. After that, the jury was sent to begin deliberations, but by that point, there was only about an hour left for them to work, so no verdict was returned. It would have been shocking indeed if they had come back that quickly. But now we're left to ponder just how long this might take. (Associated Press)

Jurors will resume deliberations Tuesday in the criminal case against President Joe Biden’s son over a gun Hunter Biden bought in 2018 when prosecutors say he was in the throes of a crack cocaine addiction.

Jurors deliberated for less than an hour before leaving the federal courthouse in Delaware Monday afternoon. They are weighing whether Hunter Biden is guilty of three felonies in the case pitting the younger Biden against his father’s Justice Department in the middle of the president’s reelection campaign.

Prosecutors spent last week using testimony from his ex-wife and former girlfriends, photos of Hunter Biden with drug paraphernalia and other tawdry evidence to make the case that he lied when he checked “no” on the form at the gun shop that asked whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.

How long a jury deliberates isn't a definitive predictor of how a trial will end, but it can offer some clues. There is technically no limit to the amount of time the jury can take, of course. The Guinness Book of World Records reports that a jury in Long Beach, California deliberated for 4.5 months following a trial in 1992, but that is far beyond the norm. If the defendant in this trial had any surname other than Biden, I would expect the jury to come back today. Given all of the hoopla surrounding this case, however, I'm not so sure.

Even with David Weiss being involved in the prosecution (a man who has moved heaven and earth to try to keep Hunter out of jail), this case should have been a no-brainer for the jurors. The prosecution delivered everything they should have needed to prove the three felony charges Hunter is facing. They presented the gun purchase application form with Hunter's signature on it, even if had been amended after the initial filing. They demonstrated that Hunter clearly checked "no" when asked if he had used or was addicted to illegal drugs. They brought in the guy who processed the form to testify. They had the laptop and the testimony of some of Hunter's own family members and former paramours to testify as to what a drug-addled mess he was at the time. 

If the defendant's name was Hunter Johnson and he was a grocery store clerk from Wilmington, the jury would be reading out the guilty verdicts before it was time for the first bathroom break this morning. If the cable news networks flash an alert today saying that the jury is returning before lunch, that might still happen. (I have a hidden streak of optimism that never entirely fades away.) It's not inconceivable that the court may have lucked out and somehow found twelve people capable of putting everything else aside and simply looking at the applicable laws and the facts as they were presented.

I'm not expecting that to happen, of course. I find it far less likely that all twelve of those men and women are so far in the tank for the Biden regime that they would show up this morning and almost immediately vote to find him not guilty. I have to believe that at least some of them will take their responsibilities seriously. If that's the case, we could be in for a significant wait indeed. One sign to look for is whether or not the jurors send requests for fresh readings of some of the evidence or clarifications of the judge's jury instructions. That would suggest that there is some amount of disagreement over how to proceed. Such questions might suggest (though not definitively) that we might be heading for a hung jury. That remains an important distinction because Hunter could face a new trial if that were to happen. But if they find him not guilty, that's the end of the road and another Biden will have got off scot-free.