Jurors begin second week of deliberations in Edwards trial

Natalie Gott

Sunday, April 30, 2000 | 10:24 a.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - A condensed version of the instructions jurors must follow in their deliberations in the trial of former Gov. Edwin Edwards will be made available when they report to court Monday.

The new 51-page set of instructions is a condensed guide to the 96 pages of instructions the judge read last week before deliberations began.

Attorneys helped U.S. Judge Frank Polozola put together the shorter version in an attempt to ease jurors' difficulty interpreting the original guidelines.

Jurors will ultimately decide whether to use the condensed version.

The 12 jurors - seven men and five women - must decide 91 criminal charges involving Edwards and his six co-defendants.

Edwards, his son, Stephen, state Sen. Greg Tarver and four associates are accused in a series of extortion schemes to manipulate the licensing of Louisiana riverboat casinos from 1991 through 1997. If convicted of all the counts, Edwards, 72, faces up to 350 years in prison.

Deliberations got off to a rocky start last week. On Wednesday, the jurors sent the judge a note saying they could not agree on anything and wanted to move on to another charge. The problem escalated Thursday when the jurors apparently stopped deliberating.

Polozola reread his instructions to the jurors Thursday and told them to be patient with "themselves and each other." Then he dismissed the panel two hours early.

On Friday, jurors did not ask the judge a single question and deliberated for seven hours before taking a weekend break.