Kraft Jurors Might Have ‘a Long Way to Go’ to Reach Verdict

Jurors in the Randy Steven Kraft serial murder trial in Santa Ana headed back to their hotel for the weekend Friday afternoon after completing their 7th day of deliberations. They will resume deliberations Monday.

Kraft attorney C. Thomas McDonald said that based on the few questions that the jurors have asked, “I think they have a long way to go. But it doesn’t surprise me that they are taking this much time.”

Kraft, now 44, a Long Beach computer consultant, is charged with 16 murders of young men in Orange County. If convicted of more than one of them, his trial would move into a penalty phase, in which prosecutors would seek the death penalty by linking him to more than 20 other slayings in Southern California, Oregon and Michigan.

The jurors have asked very few questions so far and have had very little testimony reread.

“It’s one of the quietest juries I’ve ever seen,” said one person involved in the case.

The jurors began their deliberations on April 28, after hearing 8 months of testimony. Kraft, who did not testify, has denied he killed anyone.

Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, who ordered the 10 women and two men on the jury sequestered at a local hotel, told them that they could deliberate each day for as long or as briefly as they wanted and that they could deliberate until noon on Saturdays if they so chose. He has not disclosed the name of the hotel.

The jurors so far have deliberated during regular courtroom hours, although one day they decided to leave an hour early.

They did deliberate the first Saturday, at the judge’s request. But at the end of Friday’s session, they told court officials that they would not return until Monday. McCartin has set guidelines permitting them visits from family members during the weekend. Although the jurors are allowed to be together outside their deliberations, the judge has arranged for each to have a separate room.

Jury sequestering is rarely done in modern court trials in California. The judge decided to sequester the jury despite the objections of Kraft’s attorneys. The attorneys feared that it might put undue pressure on the jurors to return an early verdict.

McDonald said Friday that even after a week of deliberation, that is still a concern.

Throughout the jury’s deliberations, Kraft has remained in a holding cell next to the judge’s chambers. McDonald said he could not reveal anything Kraft has said during the deliberations. But he did say that Kraft spends his time “doing about what any of us would do. He reads, he talks when he can to anyone who comes by. He spends time thinking.”