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Hunter Biden gun trial: Jury resumes deliberation
Hunter Biden arrives to federal court with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, Monday, June 10, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
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AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File
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Deliberations have resumed Tuesday in Hunter Biden’s trial on gun charges.
The jurors must decide whether he is guilty of federal firearms charges over a revolver he bought in 2018, when prosecutors say he was addicted to crack cocaine.
Hunter Biden leaves the courthouse as deliberations resume
By RANDALL CHASE, ERIK VERDUZCO
Hunter Biden leaves the courthouse with his wife as jurors begin a second day of deliberations. He isn’t required to stay at the courthouse while the jury deliberates, but is expected to return if the jury comes back with a note or verdict.
Jury resumes deliberations
Jurors have convened to resume deliberations in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial in Delaware. The jury deliberated for about one hour on Monday after attorneys gave their closing arguments. President Joe Biden’s son is charged with falsely denying on a federal firearms form that he was a drug addict when he bought a handgun in October 2018. He is charged with two felony counts of making a false statement related to the purchase of a firearm, and a third felony count of illegally possessing a gun while being an unlawful user of drugs.
Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden arrive at the courthouse holding hands.
Who is the judge in the Hunter Biden case?
The judge presiding over Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial in Delaware is a former corporate civil lawyer with a background in biology who was nominated to the bench by the Biden family’s chief political antagonist: former President Donald Trump.
But even while that might raise partisan eyebrows and questions of political pressure in the highly watched case, District Judge Maryellen Noreika was recommended for the bench by the two Democratic senators.
She has a brief history of political donations to both parties — mostly Republicans — and had not worked on criminal cases or presided over a courtroom before getting the nod as a federal judge. The New York Times reported she was registered to vote as a Democrat from 2000-2020 until changing her registration to no party affiliation.
The charges facing Hunter Biden
If convicted in the gun case, he faces up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders do not get anywhere near the maximum.
The defense’s approach
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have sought to show he was trying to turn his life around at the time of the gun purchase, having completed a rehabilitation program at the end of August 2018. The defense called three witnesses, including Hunter’s daughter Naomi, who told jurors that her father seemed be improving in the weeks before he bought the gun.
And the defense told jurors that no one actually witnessed Hunter Biden using drugs during the 11 days he had the gun before Beau’s widow, Hallie, found it in Hunter’s truck and threw it in a trash can.
The prosecution’s case
Prosecutors spent last week using testimony from his ex-wife and former girlfriends, photos of Hunter Biden with drug paraphernalia and other tawdry evidence to make the case that he lied when he checked “no” on the form at the gun shop that asked whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.
“He knew he was using drugs. That’s what the evidence shows. And he knew he was addicted to drugs. That’s what the evidence shows,” prosecutor Leo Wise told jurors in his closing argument Monday.
What to know about the Hunter Biden gun trial
FILE – Hunter Biden arrives to federal court, June 6, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. The criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son heads into the pivotal final stretch Monday, June 11, as the defense argues prosecutors have failed to prove their federal gun case against Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
The trial began last week in Delaware’s federal court, with prosecutors seeking to show that Hunter Biden was addicted and regularly using drugs during the 11-day period when he bought and owned the gun.
Hunter Biden’s defense team sought to show that he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the form, and said he was trying to turn his life around at the time.