It seems at least one juror feels the other jurors are intimidating her, in the Fosamax® jury deliberations -- per Peter Loftus, a few minutes ago:
. . . .On Wednesday, Timothy O'Brien, who is representing Boles, asked for a mistrial, saying one juror had indicated in a note that she was being intimidated and had been threatened. The judge denied the mistrial motion.
"Frankly, it's the most brutal deliberation or audible deliberation I, as counsel, have have been privy to," O'Brien said.
He noted that shouting could be heard coming from the jury room several times during deliberations.
. . . ."I will ask the jury to come back on Friday and if there is no verdict by 5:30 (p.m.) I will declare a mistrial," Keenan said in court while the eight jurors were still in the jury room and could not hear him.
After rejecting the motion for mistrial by O'Brien, Keenan called the jury into his courtroom and told them he was giving them a "cooling off period."
The judge said he had a prior commitment in Washington on Thursday and asked them to return to work on the case late on Friday morning.
The trial in New York is Merck's first out of some 1,280 plaintiff groups involving almost 900 U.S. lawsuits by patients who claim Fosamax caused the condition known as osteonecrosis of the jaw, or death of jawbone tissue.
Merck attorney Paul Strain, who made reference to an "unsubstantiated claim" of a chair being thrown in the jury room, told the judge that O'Brien's motion for a mistrial was not well founded.
"What we have is an accusation by one juror," Strain said. He said it was not endorsed by the other seven jurors. . . .
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