McMartin Verdicts Due Today as Jury Hangs on 13 Counts

The jury in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial has deadlocked on the final 13 counts, the foreman said in a note sent to the judge late Wednesday.

The verdicts it has reached on the remaining 52 counts are expected to be unsealed and announced this morning--ending six years of tense and often emotional proceedings to determine the guilt or innocence of Ray Buckey, 31, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 63.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders, who scheduled a hearing for 9:30 a.m., said he is required by law to ask the eight-man, four-woman panel whether, if they were to deliberate further, it is “reasonably probable” that they could arrive at a verdict on the undecided counts.

Regardless of the answer--whether from the foreman or each individual juror--the other verdicts are scheduled to be read at about 10 a.m. The downtown Criminal Courts building courtroom has been buzzing for several days with television crews, reporters and spectators anticipating the end of the longest and, at more than $15 million, costliest criminal proceeding in history.

Pounders either could order the jury to resume deliberations or could declare a mistrial on the remaining counts. Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin said it has not yet been decided whether the district attorney will refile the counts on which this jury could not agree.

Jurors have been deliberating the fate of the Buckeys since Nov. 2, after listening to 2 1/2 years of testimony. The two are charged with 65 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 youngsters who attended their family-owned Manhattan Beach nursery school.

Pounders had originally intended to unseal the verdicts as they were turned in, rather than risk a mistrial by waiting for all to be decided. No alternate jurors remain, and should any of the final 12 jurors become incapacitated, a mistrial would be likely. But jurors and attorneys opposed the piecemeal taking of verdicts, and Pounders agreed to wait at least through the Christmas vacation and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

The panel had wrestled for several days with the conspiracy count involving both the Buckeys, first asking whether they could find one and not the other guilty, then asking how they could do that since a conspiracy by definition requires more than one person.

Pounders told them that they could indeed convict one defendant of conspiracy and acquit the other, if they believe that one conspired with another person or persons and committed at least one of the acts outlined in the charge.

The group then resumed deliberations, took an afternoon break, and summoned the bailiff to the jury room around 4 p.m. The foreman handed him a note indicating that the jurors were bogged down on the remaining counts, before leaving for the day.