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OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The judge just won't let them off the hook -- not the defendants, but the jury that says it is hopelessly deadlocked. A criminal trial of three dismissed Oakland police officers accused of falsely arresting and beating suspects has become a marathon unusual even by the often plodding standards of American criminal justice. The trial began more than a year ago, and on Thursday the jury deliberated for a 55th day without reaching a verdict. They return on Monday after a day off on Friday. The judge in the case has twice refused to believe the jury of seven men and five women when it told him it was hopelessly deadlocked. 'It's very rare. I can't say it is unprecedented, but it is rare for a jury to be sitting this long,' said criminal justice historian Charles Weisselberg at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley. The jurors have twice told Superior Court Judge Leo Dorado they are deadlocked. Such a signal often allows jurors, who in Oakland earn $15 a day, to end their service and get back to their normal lives. But the judge twice responded by instructing them to keep deliberating, noting that differing tallies in successive balloting indicate 'movement' instead of deadlock...
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