The 12 jurors deliberated for about an hour after closing arguments. They will resume at 9 a.m. ET (1:00 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday.
The jury has begun deliberations in the case of Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, accused of lying about his use of illegal drugs when he bought a gun in 2018.
The 12 jurors deliberated for about an hour after hearing closing arguments Monday. They will resume at 9:00 a.m. local time (1:00 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday, a judicial official said.
“We ask, you will find that the law applies equally to this defendant as it does to anyone else,” government prosecutor Derek Hines told jurors as the first criminal trial of a son of a sitting president reached its final phase.
“When he decided to lie and buy a gun, he broke the law. We ask that you return the only verdict supported by the evidence: guilty,” Hines said.
Hunter Biden, 54, has pleaded not guilty to charges including lying about his addiction when he filled out a government research document for a Colt Cobra revolver and illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell compared the government's case to the work of a magician who focuses attention on drug use from months or years before the gun purchase to create the illusion that Hunter Biden was a crack user when he bought the weapon.
“All those years before I got into StarQuest Shooters and all those years afterward blurred together,” Lowell told jurors, referring to the gun store where he made the purchase.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered the jurors to be impartial. “You have to decide the case based on the evidence,” she told them.
“It was ugly and overwhelming”
During four days of testimony last week, prosecutors offered an intimate view of the younger Biden's years-long struggle with alcohol and crack cocaine abuse, which prosecutors say prevented him from legally purchasing a gun.
In the prosecution's closing arguments, a government lawyer said a common-sense understanding of the bleak testimony about Hunter Biden's ongoing drug use filled any gaps in the evidence about his behavior at the time of the gun purchase.
“It was personal, ugly and overwhelming,” federal prosecutor Leo Wise told jurors, referring to testimony about Hunter Biden's drug use. “But it was also necessary.”
The trial in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, follows another historic first: the May 30 criminal conviction of Donald Trump, the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. Trump is the Republican rival of Democrat Joe Biden in the November 5 presidential election.
Congressional Democrats cite the prosecution of Hunter Biden as evidence that Joe Biden is not using the justice system for political or personal purposes.
Wise said it didn't matter whether well-known people appeared in court or how they reacted to the evidence, a possible reference to first lady Jill Biden's attendance. “None of that matters. What matters came from the witness stand,” she said.
If convicted, Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison, although first-time offenders are nowhere near the maximum, and it's unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars.
