Jury continues deliberations over Hunter Biden’s fate in gun trial

Policy

By Ryan King

WILMINGTON, Del. — Jurors in Hunter Biden’s gun trial deliberated for about an hour Monday before taking a break for the day and preparing to return to the courthouse to continue discussions Tuesday.

No one knows for sure how long it will take jurors to reach a verdict in the case as they debate the criminal charges.

“We had Hunter’s life in our hands, but now we have to hand it over to you,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell told jurors shortly before they left to begin deliberations.

Prosecutor Derek Hines then retorted in his closing argument: “Mr. Lowell suggested that you have this man’s life in your hands.” You don’t have this man’s life in your hands.

“He keeps saying he’s telling you a story,” Hines said. “That’s exactly what he did in this case. It’s simply a story, a fictional story.

Judge Maryellen Noreika impressed upon jurors that they must reach a conclusion on their own and should not take to heart what she or any of the attorneys said about the case.

Three charges are being filed against President Biden’s son, alleging he illegally purchased a .38 caliber revolver while addicted to illegal drugs.

• COUNT 1: False declaration regarding the purchase of a firearm
• COUNT 2: Misrepresentation of Information Required to Be Maintained by a Federally Licensed Firearms Dealer
• COURT 3: Possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance

Hunter, 54, faces a maximum of 25 years in prison and just over $750,000 in fees if convicted on all three counts. He has pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

If convicted, Hunter will become the first son of a sitting U.S. president convicted while his father is in the White House.

President Biden, 81, has publicly said he would not pardon his troubled son if convicted.

Hunter’s trial began last Monday and presented a vast amount of evidence ranging from his own memoir that detailed his struggles with addiction to his personal communications, bank withdrawals and testimony.

Throughout the trial, Lowell emphasized the onus on prosecutors to prove that Hunter was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The lawyer tried to fuel uncertainty, arguing that the prosecution was based on “conjecture and suspicion.”

In his fiery argument, Lowell chastised the prosecution for referencing Hunter’s family sitting in the audience and criticized them for dragging his loved ones to the witness stand.

“Poor Hallie Biden who had to be dragged back into this period of her life,” he lamented, referring to the widow of President Biden’s late son Beau and Hunter’s sister-in-law, with which the accused ended up having an extramarital affair. the death of his brother.

Hallie had testified that she saw crack paraphernalia in Hunter’s truck on October 23, 2018, not far from where the gun was located, which she then threw away, setting off a series of events that alerted law enforcement. the order.

Lowell added that the process was “extraordinarily cruel to (Hunter’s) daughter,” Naomi as well.

“Who called the accused’s daughter as a witness in this case? Not us,” Hines said. “You saw her on the stand – how uncomfortable she was.

“She could not vouch for the defendant’s sobriety.”

Naomi’s testimony reported Hunter’s flaky behavior with her via text messages. Prosecutors called FBI agent Erika Jensen on Monday for about 30 minutes of additional testimony to add more details.

“The reason I think she was called was to suggest that he was OK,” prosecutor Leo Wise surmised.

“This is not OK,” he said, pointing to text messages Hunter sent him at 2 a.m. asking him to pick up his truck.

Hines later referenced Lowell’s defense of a text Hunter sent to Hallie that he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

Lowell likened the accusation to “the magician’s trick of making you look at one hand” to distract attention from the other.

Hunter appeared calm and collected as he left the courtroom with an arm around his wife Melissa Cohen Biden.