* The Knoxville News-Sentinel's Jim Balloch reports still no verdict by the Kernell jury:
After two days of deliberations, federal jurors remain unable to reach a verdict over whether former University of Tennessee student David C. Kernell illegally accessed the private e-mail account of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Phillips told the panel of East Tennesseans about 4:30 today to go home and return to court Thursday morning. He made no inquiry about their progress.
They began considering the case against the 22-year-old man Wednesday morning. They've deliberated more than 10 hours.
* The Knoxville News-Sentinel's Jim Balloch reports:
Jurors have just ended their deliberations - after a total of about 5 1/4 hours today - on federal charges against David C. Kernell, the former University of Tennessee student accused of breaking into and snooping through former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private e-mail account in 2008.
Just a few minutes ago, jurors had asked the judge a question - they'd wanted guidance on the legal definition of "access" to a computer.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Phillips told jurors that that was their decision and referred back to his original instructions.
The jurors resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
* Lawyers for David Kernell rested the defense's case Monday without calling the defendant to the stand to testify. The son of a Democrat Tennessee state legislator is charged with four felony counts, including identity theft and mail fraud for breaking into former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo! e-mail account in 2008 and posting her messages, contact lists and private telephone numbers of her friends and family members on the Web:
Federal prosecutors allege Kernell, 22, was trying to derail Palin's campaign as the GOP vice presidential running mate to Arizona Sen. John McCain when he accessed the account.
Kernell had the weekend to consider whether to testify after prosecutors rested their case Friday. The lead witness Friday in the U.S. District Court case was Palin herself, who said Kernell's alleged crimes had disrupted her life and the lives of her family.
[...]
Defense attorney Wade Davies argues what Kernell did was a college prank.
It appears that young Kernell didn't want to have to face cross-examination by the prosecutors for the details of his harmless little "college prank."
Update: Both sides have presented their closing arguments, and the case will go to the jury Tuesday.
Sarah Palin testified Friday against the son of a Tennessee state legislator on trial for breaking into her e-mail account. Gov. Palin said that the theft of her email identity compromised how she had been communicating with her family during the 2008 presidential campaign:
Palin told jurors she was in Michigan campaigning as the Republican vice presidential candidate when she first learned from a news report that her e-mail had been hacked. A few minutes later, her campaign manager and a Secret Service agent told her the report was true, she testified.
David Kernell, the defendant in the case, could go to prison for as many as 50 years if convicted of the four felony charges, including identity theft and mail fraud.
The former Alaska governor said she used the "gov.palin" Yahoo! account and a red Blackberry almost exclusively to communicate with her family in Alaska while she was campaigning as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
[...]
Palin's husband, Todd, listened as she testified. Their daughter Bristol testified earlier this week that she got harassing calls and text messages after screen shots of e-mail from the account revealed her cell phone number.
At Frankly Speaking, Terry Frank has a photo posted of Gov. Palin as she was about to enter the courtroom.
WBIR has more here, including a web video of Gov. Palin answering some questions from the media as she was leaving the courthouse. An ABC News story and video are here, and the Knoxville News Sentinel's report and a photo are here.
