Brown Jury Acquits 3 on Some Charges : Courts: Members were told to continue deliberations after saying they may be stymied on the more serious charges in the religious-deprogramming case.

The mother and sister of Ginger Brown were found not guilty Wednesday of charges that they falsely imprisoned and battered her during a religious deprogramming attempt, but the defendants were prohibited by a judge’s gag order from doing much more than crying, smiling and giggling in relief.

The jury also acquitted co-defendant Hank Erler, 23, of Escondido, whose family home was used during the deprogramming attempt, of the three most serious charges he faced: kidnaping, battery and false imprisonment with threat of physical harm.

But the most critical charges in the case remained unresolved by the jury, which said it was at “an apparent impasse.” The judge told them to continue deliberating.

Unresolved are kidnaping charges against the mother, Dorothy Brown, 58, and sister, Holly Brown, 25, as well as charges of kidnaping, false imprisonment and battery faced by Ginger Brown’s father, Earle Brown, 58, and deprogrammer Cliff Daniels, 35. Daniels was hired by the family to try to persuade Brown to disavow her allegiance to a group known as Great Among the Nations and its leader, Benjamin Altschul.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Vista Superior Court Judge David B. Moon Jr. privately polled the jurors to determine the numerical split in their deliberations. After asking the jurors whether they wanted to keep the vote tally secret--an invitation that one juror accepted--Moon said he would not publicly release the tally.

Suggesting that the area might be one of dispute, the jury also had read back to it testimony from Earle Brown in which he described his wife’s and his joint decision to hire Daniels.

Moon rejected a defense motion for a mistrial and ordered jurors to resume their deliberations at 9 a.m. today.

“They do not use the term hopelessly deadlocked ,” Moon told attorneys.

Although the partial verdicts brought a clear sense of relief to the defendants, their reaction was stifled by Moon’s order that no attorney or defendant discuss the case, because the jury is still deliberating. Moon’s gag order even prohibited Erler and Brown’s mother and sister from telling reporters their reaction to the not-guilty verdicts.

Moon said comments to the press on even the resolved verdicts might influence the jurors should they hear or read about them, despite admonitions to ignore news reports.

However, the defendants cried, laughed, smiled and hugged in the courthouse hallway amid television cameras and newspaper photographers.

Generally, reporters were forced to rely on secondhand reactions to the verdicts, such as this one from Hank Erler’s mother, Nan:

“I just thank God. I prayed and prayed and prayed that they (jurors) would see through all this, and that, even if you maybe are emancipated when you’re 18, there’s no magical age to stop being a caring parent.”

For her part, 24-year-old Ginger Brown, the prosecution’s star witness against her relatives and the other two co-defendants, said she is satisfied with the jury’s verdicts so far.

“My impression is the jury is finding what best it can, based on the evidence, so as far as I’m concerned it’s a positive thing if they (her mother, sister and Erler) don’t have to be punished for something.

“I’m basically content the jury is doing its job,” she said. “I know it’s not over; there’s more to do.”

The jury’s partial verdicts left unresolved the major issue of whether parents are guilty of kidnaping an adult child, even if they believe it is for the child’s own good. Moon had ruled that the parents’ motive could not serve as a defense, because the defendants were unable to show that Brown was in jeopardy during her association with Great Among the Nations.

Instead, the defense argued during the trial that Brown baited her parents and the others to kidnap her so she could later sue for monetary damages.

It became clear Tuesday, from notes the jury sent the judge, that at least some jurors were torn between convicting some of the defendants based on the letter of the law, and acquitting them out of sympathy.

Moon then said he might authorize a so-called special verdict, in which, if the jurors simply found that the various elements of the crime existed, the actual verdict would be pronounced by the judge himself.

But Moon never got to that point Wednesday. Instead, the jury sent a note to him saying it had reached seven of the 20 possible verdicts.

The verdicts on Erler were read first. Erler, whose mother’s Escondido home was used for the five-day deprogramming attempt in May, 1988, threw back his head in relief, clapped loudly and reached forward to hug his attorney, Charles Duff.

Erler was generally considered the least important player among the five defendants because he was not present at Brown’s abduction from an Encinitas parking lot near where she worked, and was present only during parts of the deprogramming attempt.

The Brown family members hugged each other after the not-guilty verdicts for Holly and Dorothy were read.

If and when the jury resolves the remaining counts, the defendants will still face additional charges of conspiracy to kidnap and false imprisonment, for which testimony and evidence is still to be taken. Moon has said he wanted those charges to be tried separately because of different rules of evidence. But Wednesday, he suggested that, at least in Erler’s case, the conspiracy charges might be dismissed.

“If he’s not guilty of the felony, should I dismiss the conspiracy on the theory he can’t be convicted of conspiring a felony that didn’t exist?” he asked rhetorically.

He said he would decide that question later.

Moon issued his gag order first thing Wednesday morning in the wake of news articles in which attorneys discussed and speculated on the jury deliberations.

He prohibited the attorneys and defendants from discussing the trial because of “the delicacy of the jury deliberations and certain notes that have come back and forth between jurors and the court.”

“I want to preserve the sanctity of the jury deliberation process and the privacy of the jury, and each juror’s conscience, in making their decisions in this matter,” the judge said.

By afternoon, attorneys for Copley Press, television Channels 8 and 10 and the Oceanside Blade-Citizen newspaper had arrived in the courtroom to argue against the gag order, but Moon said he would not consider changing his mind until hearing more arguments by them at a 10 a.m. hearing today.