Media Roundup: Waiting

The media reports, webbed overnight and today, on the Conrad Black trial are focused on the continuing deliberations, with hardly any feature reports:

1. A brief Canadian Press report, as webbed by the Brandon Sun, mentions that the jurors will deliberate today from 9 AM CT to 4:45 PM CT.

2. An excerpted CP report by Romina Maurino, as webbed by the Toronto Sun, explains why it is likely that a verdict will come next week.

3. The Globe and Mail has webbed a report by Tara Perkins and Paul Waldie about a pro-Conrad online group that's genuine, unlike the one that was created by the publisher of Frank magazine; it's in Facebook. This group, called the Conrad Black Fan Club, was created by Adam Daifallah, a researcher who helped out with both of Conrad Black's recent books. One Facebook member mentioned in the report is Mike Boultbee; the report neither confirms nor denies any filial relation to Jack Boultbee. (In order to see this group, you have to either be a Facebook member or register as one.)

4. The Financial Post has webbed an excerpt of the National Post feature on Conrad Black as he is now, one written by Theresa Tedesco.

5. A CP update, webbed by 680 News, reports that "[t]he federal courthouse in downtown Chicago is buzzing with anticipation of a verdict at the Conrad Black fraud trial." As of early today, though, there's no definite sign of one; the jurors are still deliberating. [A somewhat longer version of the same story, with some added background, has been webbed by 570 News.]

6. BNN aired a report by Amanda Lang at 1:54 PM. She reported, along with other facets of the deliberations and verdict watch, about a jury-watcher who forecast an imminent verdict from interpreting an exclamation mark in Thursday's good-time-for-closing note from the jury. She also said that the jurors' checkbox form is arranged by defendant, and then count for each accused, and will dictate the procedure for reading out the verdict.

7. An end-of-day report, written by Romina Maurino and webbed by the Toronto Star, starts off with the note that the jurors have not reached a verdict yet. It contains some detail on the revised form that the jurors have to fill out, including an example of how the charges have been broken down.

8. An AP summary report, as webbed by WQAD.com, mentions that the jury has left a note with the judge saying that they will deliberate all day tomorrow.

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Steve Skurka, in "The Crime Sheet," suspects that the much-vaunted 95% conviction rate is too good to be true, and finds out that the official conviction rate is held by the Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney's office to be a misstatement.

Douglas Bell, in the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, features a Guardian review of The Invincible Quest in his latest report on the top stories on the trial. He also unveils his opinion on the Globe report linked to above. (Unusually, the review itself is mixed, and has mixed in some mockery of the author.)

Some other opinions have been unveiled by Mark Steyn in his Maclean's Conrad Black trial blog; they tie the case into the wider context of the state of the United States justice system. After quoting a reader-sent excerpt from a two-centuries-old decision by Judge Samuel Chase on what a bad law is, he goes through each attribute and argues that the criminal prosecution of Conrad Black et. al. fits the entire (bad) bill.