The State : Kraft Jurors Sequestered

Jurors in the Randy Steven Kraft serial murder trial deliberated for a second day Saturday in Santa Ana without reaching a verdict and returned to the hotel where they have been ordered sequestered by Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin. Kraft, 44, a Long Beach computer consultant, is charged with murdering 16 young men in Orange County between 1972 and 1983. The case went to the jury of 10 women and 2 men on Friday after seven months of testimony. McCartin ordered the jury sequestered--a rare step in modern criminal cases--over the objections of Kraft’s attorneys, who feared that jurors subconsciously would feel pressure to rush a verdict so they could return home. Kraft was arrested on May 14, 1983, when two California Highway Patrol officers found a dead Marine in the front passenger seat of his car. That led to an investigation by Orange County law enforcement officials that resulted in prosecutors’ linking Kraft to 45 murders in Southern California, Oregon and Michigan. The jurors are scheduled to resume their deliberations at 9 a.m. Monday. Lawyers following the case predict that it will be at least a week before jurors return a verdict, simply because of the sheer volume of counts they must deal with.