There is no official average for how long a jury verdict takes, but most deliberations run somewhere between a few hours and a few days. Simple cases with clear evidence can produce a verdict in under an hour. Complex trials with many documents, multiple defendants, or competing expert testimony can keep jurors talking for weeks. The longest recorded jury deliberation stretched four and a half months, though that is vanishingly rare.
One thing worth clearing up before anything else: when news coverage says a jury “deliberated for five days,” that almost always means five workdays of discussion, not 120 continuous hours. Jurors typically follow a normal business-day schedule and go home in the evening. Sequestration, where the jury is housed in a hotel and cut off from news and outside contact, happens far less often than television suggests and is reserved for rare or high-profile cases.
What Jurors Are Actually Doing
After closing arguments and the judge’s legal instructions, the jury moves to a private room and picks a foreperson to lead the discussion and eventually deliver the verdict. From there, jurors review exhibits, work through witness testimony, and try to apply the judge’s instructions to what they saw at trial. They take votes to see where everyone stands, keep discussing, and re-vote until they hit the required level of agreement. Everything said in the room stays confidential.
That basic loop is the same whether deliberations take two hours or two weeks. What changes is how much material there is to work through and how far apart the jurors start.
What Makes Deliberations Longer or Shorter
How Complex the Case Is
Trials built on technical evidence such as forensic accounting, medical causation, or dueling expert opinions force jurors to spend time simply understanding the material before they can evaluate it. A fraud case with years of financial records will take longer than a straightforward assault charge where the question is whether the defendant threw the punch.
How Much Evidence There Is
A two-day trial might produce a thin folder of exhibits. A multi-week trial can generate hundreds of documents, recorded calls, surveillance footage, and dozens of witnesses. More material means more to revisit, and jurors often ask to have specific testimony read back or replayed.
How Many Charges and Defendants
Jurors evaluate each charge against each defendant separately. A single-defendant, single-count case is one up-or-down decision. A federal conspiracy case with four defendants and twelve counts means working through every combination independently. That multiplies the time in the room.
The Unanimity Requirement
In every criminal trial for a serious offense, federal and state alike, all jurors must agree before returning a guilty verdict. The Supreme Court cemented that rule in 2020 in Ramos v. Louisiana, holding that the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial right requires unanimity in state criminal proceedings, not just federal ones.1Supreme Court of the United States. Ramos v. Louisiana, No. 18-5924 Getting twelve people to a single conclusion takes longer than getting most of them there, and a single persistent holdout can extend deliberations by days.
Civil trials work differently. In federal civil cases, unanimity is the default, but the parties can agree in advance to accept a non-unanimous verdict.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 48 – Number of Jurors; Verdict; Polling Many state courts allow civil verdicts from a supermajority, often 10 of 12 or 5 of 6, as a matter of course. A lower agreement threshold generally means shorter deliberations.
The Type of Verdict Form
A general verdict asks the jury for a single bottom line: guilty or not guilty, plaintiff or defendant. A special verdict hands the jury a list of specific factual questions and the judge applies the law to those answers. Special verdict forms tend to slow things down because jurors have to agree on each question rather than just the outcome.
Questions, Read-Backs, and Other Pauses
The judge does not sit idle while the jury is out. If jurors have a legal question or want to revisit evidence, they send a written note. The judge consults with both sides’ attorneys before crafting a response. That back-and-forth can happen several times in a single deliberation, and each round adds a delay while the lawyers work out acceptable language.
Jurors can also ask for a read-back of trial testimony. Whether to grant the request is within the judge’s discretion, and when it is granted, the relevant portions are read aloud or replayed in open court with all parties present.3Ninth Circuit District & Bankruptcy Courts. Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions – 7.10 Readback or Playback In a long trial, read-back requests alone can add hours or days.
When the Jury Cannot Agree
If jurors report they are stuck, the judge has options. The most common is an Allen charge, a supplemental instruction urging jurors to keep deliberating, reconsider their positions, and try in good faith to reach agreement.4Ninth Circuit District & Bankruptcy Courts. Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions – 7.7 Deadlocked Jury The name comes from an 1896 Supreme Court case that first approved the practice. Federal courts still use Allen charges with caution because of concern that they pressure holdouts into caving. Many state courts have banned them for that reason.
If no instruction breaks the logjam, the judge declares a mistrial on the unresolved charges. That is a hung jury. It resolves nothing on its own, and the prosecution can retry the case, drop it, or negotiate a plea.
Partial Verdicts Can End Things Sooner
Deadlock is not always total. In cases with multiple charges or defendants, jurors may agree on some counts and be stuck on others. Federal rules allow a partial verdict: the jury delivers its decision on the resolved counts, and the judge declares a mistrial only on the deadlocked ones.5Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 31 – Jury Verdict A judge may point struggling jurors to that option, which sometimes ends deliberations sooner than a full mistrial would.
Death-Penalty Cases Run Longer
If the case is capital, a guilty verdict is not the end of the jury’s work. Capital trials are bifurcated: a first phase decides guilt, and if the defendant is convicted, the same jury sits for a sentencing phase, hearing additional evidence about aggravating and mitigating factors before deciding on the death penalty.6Legal Information Institute. Constitution Annotated – The Death Penalty and the Requirement of an Impartial Jury That second phase has its own deliberation period, which can add days or weeks. In non-capital cases, sentencing is the judge’s job and the jury plays no role.