PHILADELPHIA, May 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Judge Jeffrey Minehart, who is presiding over the capital murder trial of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, has sent the jury back to continue deliberations after the jury announced this morning that they were hung on two counts.
It has not yet been revealed on which charges the jury is hung.
If the jury fails to reach a verdict on the two counts, the judge could reportedly declare a mistrial on those crimes, but accept the jury's verdicts on all remaining counts.
According to a reporter in the courtroom, Gosnell entered the courtroom this morning “smiling” and shook hands with his attorney. He has now been returned to a holding cell while the jury attempts to come to a consensus.
Another reporter said that the jury looked “weary” and did not react when the judge told them to continue deliberations.
The jury, composed of seven women and five men, is considering more than 250 criminal counts against the late-term abortionist, including four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of newborn babies. According to witnesses the babies were born alive and then killed by having their spinal cords snipped.
Defense attorney Jack McMahon has argued that the prosecution cannot prove definitively that the babies were born alive. He told the jury that Gosnell first injected the babies with the drug Digoxin to ensure “fetal demise” before inducing labor to deliver the babies, and that any motions the babies may have made after birth were merely reflex reactions.
However, Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron said that during the FBI drug raid that first uncovered the filthy conditions at the clinic back in 2010, Digoxin was not among the drugs found on the premises. Some witnesses testified babies survived as long as 20 minutes between birth and “abortion,” breathing and showing vigorous signs of life.
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Three counts of first-degree murder were already dropped during the trial when Judge Minehart agreed with McMahon that there was insufficient evidence that those babies were born alive.
If convicted of any of the four counts of first-degree murder, Gosnell faces the death penalty.
The jury entered its tenth day of deliberations today in a trial that has been on-going since mid-March.