Jury deliberations resume in Hunter Biden gun trial after tense closing arguments — here are the questions jurors must answer
WILMINGTON, Del. — The jurors in Hunter Biden’s federal firearms trial resumed deliberations Tuesday morning, their second day of debate after getting the case.
The six-man, six-woman panel mulled over their verdict for one hour Monday afternoon, before opting to break for the day at 4:30 p.m. and resume after a night’s sleep.
“We have had Hunter’s life in our hands, but now we have to give that to you,” defense lawyer Abbe Lowell told the jurors shortly before they departed to begin deliberations.
Prosecutor Derek Hines rebuked Lowell in his closing argument, telling the jurors: “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’s done in this case. It’s simply a story — a fictional story.”
Judge Maryellen Noreika impressed upon the jurors that they need to reach a conclusion on their own and should not mindlessly take either her or the lawyers’ statements about the case to heart.
There are three charges pending against President Biden’s son alleging that he illegally bought a .38–caliber revolver while addicted to illegal drugs in October 2018.
- COUNT 1: False Statement in Purchase of a Firearm
- COUNT 2: False Statement Related to Information Required to be Kept by Federal Firearms Licensed Dealer
- COUNT 3: Possession of a Firearm by a Person who is an Unlawful User of or Addicted to a Controlled Substance
Here are the questions the jurors must answer on the verdict form:
- 1. As to count one, charging the defendant with making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of a firearm, we the jury find the defendant:____Guilty ____Not Guilty
- 2. As to count two, charging the defendant with making a false statement with respect to information required to be kept in records, we the jury find the defendant:____Guilty ____Not Guilty
- 3. As to count three, charging the defendant with possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, we the jury find the defendant:____Guilty ____Not Guilty
- The foregoing constitutes the unanimous verdict of the jury.
Hunter, 54, faces a maximum of up to 25 years behind bars and a little over $750,000 in fees if found guilty on all three counts. He has pleaded not guilty.
President Biden, 81, publicly declared last week that he will not pardon his troubled son in the event of a conviction.
Hunter’s trial began June 3 and has featured a vast trove of evidence ranging from his own memoir that detailed his addiction struggles to his personal communications, bank withdrawals and witness testimony.
Throughout the course of the trial, Lowell has harped on the requirement for prosecutors to prove Hunter was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, arguing that the federal case is predicated upon “conjecture and suspicion.”
At one point, the defense attorney likened the prosecution efforts to a “magician’s trick of having you look in one hand” to distract from the other.
In his feisty closing arguments, Lowell admonished the prosecution for a reference to Hunter’s family sitting in the audience and dinged them for dragging his relatives to the witness stand.
“Poor Hallie Biden, who had to be dragged through this period of her life again,” he bemoaned, referring to the widow of President Biden’s late son Beau and Hunter’s sister-in-law, with whom the defendant ended up having an extramarital affair after his brother’s death.
Hallie had testified that she saw crack paraphernalia in Hunter’s truck Oct. 23, 2018, along with the gun that she later tossed out, triggering a series of events that drew law enforcement into the matter.
Lowell added that the process was “extraordinarily cruel to [Hunter’s] daughter,” Naomi, as well.
“Who called the defendant’s daughter as a witness in this case? Not us,” Hines responded. “You saw her up on the stand — how uncomfortable she was.
“She couldn’t vouch for the defendant’s sobriety.”
