Less than an hour after resuming deliberations, jurors in the James “Whitey†Bulger trial today asked US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper for some additional legal guidance.
The question the jury is asking has not yet been made public, but prosecutors, defense attorneys and relatives of some of the people Bulger allegedly murdered are returning to Casper’s courtroom at the Moakley Courthouse in South Boston.
Today is the first full day of deliberations in a trial that provided a look into a dark corner of Boston’s history when the reputed crime boss was an FBI informant, a connection that led to the murders of innocents.
On Tuesday, the jury of four women and eight men spent 5 ½ hours sifting through evidence presented over the past eight weeks before adjourning around 4:30 p.m. Among the exhibit available to hem are charts of Boston’s underworld hierarchy, gruesome crime scene photos, and stacks of FBI informant reports.
The jurors are weighing 32 counts against the 83-year-old Bulger alleging he participated in a racketeering enterprise from the 1970s to the 1990s that raked in millions of dollars from drug trafficking and extortion of bookmakers, drug dealers, and businessmen.
Bulger has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held without bail.
One of the racketeering counts alleges that Bulger committed 33 criminal acts, including 19 murders, six extortions, and conspiring to sell marijuana and cocaine. By law, jurors only have to find Bulger guilty of two acts, which occurred within 10 years of each other, in order for him to be convicted of racketeering.
US District Judge Denise J. Casper told jurors during a one hour and 40 minute instruction on the law Tuesday that they must reach a unanimous verdict on every count and all of the acts listed in the racketeering count.
Jurors heard 35 days of testimony from 72 witnesses, including three of Bulger’s closest former associates: Stephen “The Rifleman†Flemmi, Kevin Weeks, and John Martorano, who admitted their own involvement in murders and were given controversial plea deals in exchange for their cooperation with authorities against Bulger and corrupt FBI officials. The jury also heard from a corrupt FBI supervisor, John Morris, who admitted taking $7,000 in bribes from Bulger and Flemmi and leaking information to them.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Bulger was an FBI informant from 1975 to 1990 and that his corrupt handler, John J. Connolly Jr., leaked information that allegedly prompted Bulger and his associates to kill three FBI informants who were cooperating against them, an innocent bystander, and a potential witness.
The defense essentially put the government on trial as it focused on FBI corruption and argued that Bulger was never an informant, but rather paid agents for information. The defense also repeatedly pressed its assertion that Flemmi, not Bulger, killed two women, Debra Davis and Deborah Hussey, who are the only women among the 19 victims.
Bulger has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held without bail.
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph. Milton J. Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.
