As the Manhattan jurors deciding Harvey Weinstein’s fate were about to begin their second day of deliberations on Friday, a note was delivered to the judge. One of the 12 had a concern.
The juror, a young man, was summoned to the courtroom. He sat in the jury box and began to vent his frustrations.
He wanted to “report what I heard and saw yesterday,” he told Justice Curtis Farber of State Supreme Court, who is overseeing the trial. The man said he had overheard others on the jury — in an elevator and outside the courthouse on Thursday — talking about another member of the group. What he had observed, he believed, amounted to misconduct.
Justice Farber thanked the man and sent him back to the jury room. The judge then denied a motion by Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers for a mistrial, saying it did not appear that the discussions cited by the juror involved actual trial evidence.
“Notably,” the judge said, “whoever was the topic of conversation has not reported it to the court.”
The surprising episode provided a rare peek into the friction that can develop among jurors in a high-stakes trial, disagreements that generally remain behind closed doors. It also seemed, at least briefly, as though it might derail the disgraced film mogul’s second New York trial on sex crime charges, and create another twist in the long-running case.
Mr. Weinstein was convicted of rape and a criminal sexual act at trial in Manhattan in 2020. The verdict, which resulted in a 23-year prison sentence, was seen as a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement. He was subsequently convicted of sexual assault in Los Angeles and sentenced to 16 years in prison there. He is appealing that verdict.
Last year, New York’s highest court overturned the Manhattan conviction, and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said his office would move to retry Mr. Weinstein.
In April, after a new criminal sexual act charge was added to the case, jury selection for the retrial began. Mr. Weinstein is now charged with two counts of a first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of third-degree rape.
After six weeks of testimony, the jury began deliberating this week, but things have not gone smoothly so far.
On Thursday, as the judge prepared to give the jury the case, Juror No. 8 told him she was sick and could not come to court. He replaced her with an alternate juror. Deliberations began, and the four remaining alternates were dismissed, an unusual move given that deliberations could take days, and jurors could become sick or be dismissed for other reasons.
On Friday afternoon, just after the judge announced a break for lunch, the decision to proceed without alternates was tested.
The young man who had raised concerns about his fellow jurors on Thursday was back in the empty jury box. Having apparently reached his limit, he asked to be dismissed.
“The experience I’ve had for the day and a half here I don’t think this is fair and just,” he told the judge, adding that he saw “a bit of a shunning happening” toward one of the other jurors. As he spoke, looking directly at the defense table at times, he told Justice Farber that he was not being pressured himself to vote any particular way.
Heated conversations did not make him feel uncomfortable, he said, but the other jurors’ actions made him want to give up his spot on the panel.
“It’s playground stuff,” he said.
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers moved for a mistrial again.
Arthur L. Aidala, one of the defense lawyers, described the juror, who works in information technology at a bank, as “meek.” Mr. Aidala called the man a “25-year-old kid who lives with his grandmother” and “a computer kid” and he argued that the man’s concerns should be examined further before being brushed aside.
“We don’t know what he overheard,” Mr. Aidala said.
Justice Farber appeared unmoved and denied the defense motion, noting that the man had never said any of the jurors were being threatened. The juror’s statements were vague, the judge said, adding that perhaps “his youth makes him uncomfortable to experiencing conflict.”
The judge also declined to dismiss the aggrieved juror.
“You took an oath,” the judge told the man.
He added: “There’s no legal basis to excuse you.”
And so the trial continued.
Jurors asked to have portions of the trial transcript read aloud to them by court reporters — one acting as questioner, the other as witness. Mr. Weinstein sat in his wheelchair at the defense table, shaking his head and covering his face with his hand.
As the afternoon wore on, some jurors appeared antsy. One woman, who had been attentive throughout and taking notes during testimony, nodded off.
At 4:27 p.m., the jurors returned to the deliberation room to continue their discussions. A half- hour later, they sent another note to the judge.
“We, the jury, request an end for the day,” the note said. “We will need more time to deliberate.”
A half-hour later, they were dismissed for the weekend.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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