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ByJulietLinderman and David Dishneau The Associated Press BALTIMORE Jurors said they were deadlocked Tuesday as they weighed manslaughter and other charges against a police of- ficer in the death of Fred- die Gray. The judge told them to keep deliberating and they went home for the night without reach- ing a verdict. The jury reported its failure to agree in a note to Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams after about nine hours of discussions over two days. It wasn't clear if they were stuck on one or more of the four charges Officer William Porter faces. He is the first of six officers to stand trial. Armored vehicles and police were stationed around the city, and offi- cials promised they were prepared for any unrest. Parts of the city burned last spring after Gray's death triggered frustrations over the department's alleged mistreatment of black peo- ple, and authorities were determined to prevent a repeat. Earlier Tuesday, jurors requested highlighters, an easel and sticky notes, sug- gesting a businesslike ap- proach to assessing Por- ter's role in Gray's arrest and death. They also re- ceived computer speak- ers to improve the sound quality of recordings in evidence, including Por- ter's videotaped interview with Baltimore police de- tectives, police radio trans- missions on the day Gray was arrested and cellphone videos made at two of the wagon's six stops. In all, the jury heard from more than two dozen witnesses and received about 100 pieces of evi- dence in the trial, which began Nov. 30. They even took a trip to see the po- lice wagon where Gray had been left face-first on the floor, with his wrists tied behind his back and his an- kles shackled. Gray, who was arrested while fleeing from police, died April 19, a week after his neck was broken while the seven-block trip turned into a circuitous, 45-min- ute journey around West Baltimore. The autopsy concluded that Gray prob- ably suffered the injury by being slammed against the metal container's wall dur- ing cornering or braking. A manslaughter convic- tion is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct are considered lesser charges. The judge denied de- fense requests to declare a mistrial or try Porter outside of Baltimore. Por- ter's lawyers sought to ask jurors if they'd seen a let- ter the city schools chief sent home with children Monday, warning against violent responses to a ver- dict. The judge said asking jurors about the letter would not be appropriate. The jury has not been se- questered, but they have been warned not to read news articles about the case or talk about it with anyone other than fellow jurors. FREDDIE GRAY CASE Jurors deadlocked, judge says keep deliberating ROBCARR—POOLPHOTO William Porter, one of six Baltimore city police officers charged in connection to the death of Freddie Gray, arrives at a courthouse for jury selection in his trial in Baltimore. By Deb Riechmann The Associated Press WASHINGTON Theattorney for Army Sgt. Bowe Berg- dahl lashed out on Tuesday at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and congressional commit- tees for peddling misinfor- mation that he says is im- peding his client's right to a fair trial. A court-martial is the next step in the military's case against Bergdahl, who was held captive by the Tal- iban for five years and freed in a controversial exchange for five Taliban detainees held in Guantanamo Bay. Bergdahl, 29, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province on June 30, 2009. He was released in late May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap that touched off a firestorm of criticism, with some in Congress ac- cusing President Barack Obama of jeopardizing the safety of a nation with the exchange. Bergdahl's disappear- ance and the possibility that he might face light punishment had angered many in the military, given that his fellow soldiers took considerable risks to search for him. Bergdahl's attorney, Eu- gene Fidell, asked that Trump "cease his prejudi- cial months-long campaign of defamation against our client." In October, Trump called Bergdahl a "traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed." Fidell told The Asso- ciated Press in an inter- view that Trump stated more recently in Las Ve- gas, Nevada, that five sol- diers were killed trying to find Bergdahl. The Penta- gon has said no one died in the searches. Trump also has pledged to review the case if Berg- dahl is not appropriately punished, Fidell said. "I have no idea what Mr. Trump has in mind and I don't think Mr. Trump has any idea of what he has in mind," he said. "I think he's a big faker." The lawyer criticized Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Sen- ate Armed Services Com- mittee, for saying his com- mittee would investigate and hold a hearing if it dis- agrees with the outcome of the case. Fidell also took issue with a 98-page report is- sued last week by the House Armed Services Committee that criticized the Obama administration's decision to swap the five former Tali- ban leaders for Bergdahl. The report said the commit- tee would ensure that "Sgt. Bergdahl's behavior is adju- dicated as required." Fidell said he read that as a call to "hammer" Bergdahl for his actions. COURT-MARTIAL Bergdahl attorney lashes out at Trump By Erica Werner The Associated Press WASHINGTON Congres- sional leaders were poised Tuesday to unveil a year- end tax and spending pack- age that would fund the gov- ernment through 2016, raise domesticanddefensespend- ing, and increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars by extending numer- ouspopulartaxcreditswith- out paying for them. "The package has been completed. The agreements, we believe, have been prop- erly struck," House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told re- porters after meeting with other members of House GOP leadership Tuesday evening. He said the ten- tative agreement was be- ing reviewed by congressio- nal scorekeepers and would be presented to lawmakers later Tuesday evening to re- view, though other aides said details were still being finalized. Eleventh-hour negotia- tions twisted and turned on the mammoth deal pair- ing the $1.1 trillion spending legislation with a giant tax bill catering to any number ofspecialinterests.Thedeal, Congress' last major piece of unfinished business for the year, became the vehicle for countless long-sought prior- ities and odds and ends, in- cluding bankruptcy protec- tion for Puerto Rico, reform of visa-free travel to the U.S., renewableenergytaxcredits and health benefits for 9/11 first responders. Republican leaders pre- dicted the legislation would be unveiled by day's end and come to a vote Thursday, al- lowing lawmakers to head home for the holidays hav- ing completed their needed tasks, if not distinguished themselves much beyond that. First they would have to pass yet another short- term government funding extension, since the current one runs out Wednesday at midnight. "In negotiations like this youwinsome,youlosesome. Democrats won some, they lost some. We won some, we lost some," new House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said at an event hosted by Politico. "At the end of the day we're going to get this done." Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seek- ing to maintain leverage, repeatedly cautioned that critical details remained unresolved, warning at one point, "At this pace, we're going to be here through Christmas." It was perhaps an empty threat with lawmakers of both parties eager to get out of Washington. But it underscored the degree to which Democrats, despite their minority party status in Congress, have been able to exact a price in the ne- gotiations, thanks to Pres- ident Barack Obama's veto pen and Republicans' need for Democratic votes on the spending bill. "We may not be in the majority but we're feel- ing that these goals are on track," boasted Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Last-stage negotiations focused on horse trad- ing around Democratic de- mands in exchange for lift- ing the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil, a Re- publican goal. Democrats were aiming to kill GOP at- tempts to roll back Obama environmental regulations, and also sought five-year ex- tensions of wind and solar tax credits. A provision re- lated to money to clean up oceans emerged as a stick- ing point at the last minute. Democrats sought to ex- tend the child tax credit, opposing GOP demands for Social Security numbers for participants, which Demo- crats said could exclude the children of immigrants in this country illegally. From the White House, press secretary Josh Ear- nest sounded resigned to Obama signing a bill lift- ing the crude oil export ban despite previous threats to veto the measure as stand- alone legislation. The ex- port ban was imposed dur- ing energy shortages of the 1970s but has been declared outdated by industry allies, though environmentalists say lifting it would amount to a giant windfall for the oil industry. "I'm confident that there will be things that will be in- cluded in the omnibus bill that we don't support," Ear- nestsaid."Idon'tknowifthe lifting of the export ban will be among them, but our po- sition on this is pretty clear." BUDGET BATTLE Bargainers near agreement on tax cut deal By Jake Pearson The Associated Press NEW YORK While big-city jails get most of the atten- tion, lockups in small and medium-sized counties have actually driven the overall explosion in the U.S. inmate population, accord- ing to a new analysis of 45 years of jail statistics. U.S. jails now hold nearly 700,000 inmates on any given day, up from 157,000 in 1970, and the Vera Insti- tute of Justice found that smaller counties now hold 44 percent of the overall to- tal, up from just 28 percent in 1978. Jail populations in mid- sized counties with popu- lations of 250,000 to 1 mil- lion residents grew by four times and small-sized coun- ties with 250,000 residents or less grew by nearly seven times,Vera'sanalysisshows. In that time large county jail populations grew by only about three times. Exactly what's behind that trend is not clear but experts say a range of fac- tors likely contribute, from lawenforcement'sincreased use of summonses and traf- fic tickets to the closing of state mental hospitals in that time. "Everyone's jail problem is a little different," said Ve- ra's Christian Henrichson. Unlike state prisons that hold inmates doing lengthy terms, local jails and county lockups are generally used to house pretrial detainees or those who have been sen- tenced to serve stints of a year or less for relatively mi- nor crimes. Jail use continues to rise though crime rates have declined since peaking in 1991, the analysis shows. Blacks are jailed at nearly four times the rate of whites and the number of women locked up in jails has grown 14-fold since 1970, accord- ing to the Vera report. The number of jails with 1,000 beds or more has soared from 21 in 1970 to 145 in 2014, and the average number of days people stay locked up in jail has grown from nine in 1978 to 23 in 2014, according to the sta- tistics. "To understand what's going on you have to look at the local context," said Nancy Fishman, who heads all jails-related work for the New York nonprofit's Center on Sentencing and Correc- tions. "A lot of the things we see, we don't have answers for yet." To give local corrections officials and sheriffs bet- ter information about jail trends over time, Vera drew on federal statistics to cre- ate an online tool that maps a range of data for all of the roughly 3,000 county lock- ups. That will allow officials to compare their jail incar- ceration rates to similarly- situated counties based on totalpopulation,medianin- come and arrest rates. The push for more infor- mation comes as advocacy groups, federal prosecu- tors and others are forcing counties across the country to reform their local crimi- nal justice systems to make them fairer — and cut ever increasing costs dedicated to running decades-old lockups that are often over- crowded. STUDY Smaller counties driving US jail population growth GaylaEckels: (530) 737-5044 geckels@redbluffdailynews.com Suzy Noble: (530) 737-5056 snoble@redbluffdailynews.com GoMultimediathisChristmasSeason! 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