No Decision on Penalty for Killer of Klaas; Jury Off Until Monday
Jurors deciding whether Richard Allen Davis should be executed for killing 12-year-old Polly Klaas put in a fourth day of deliberations Thursday without reaching a verdict.
The panel will take Friday off and resume deliberations on Monday.
The six-man, six-woman jury found Davis, 42, guilty on June 18 of killing Polly. The panel also found the “special circumstances” of kidnapping, burglary, robbery and attempting a lewd act on a child.
That left jurors two choices for punishment: execution or life in prison without possibility of parole.
Although attorneys on both sides said it was impossible to tell what was going on in the jury room, the length of deliberations was beginning to make prosecutors concerned--and the defense hopeful.
“Worried, yeah, I’m worried. They looked very uptight tonight,” prosecutor Greg Jacobs said after jurors came into the courtroom to officially disband for the day Thursday.
Defense attorneys said they hoped jurors were carefully weighing whether Davis deserves to be executed.
“I think if they were close they would have come in tomorrow,” defense attorney Barry Collins said.
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