We've moved to a real energized case management system in this country in criminal justice and in civil cases. I think the national steering committee did a paper on case management. A judge will assess the case—that's what we ask them to do—and decide whether it's appropriate to take breaks. I'm not sure what you mean by breaks, in terms of how long; I don't know what people have said. A judge can work that out with counsel and maybe consult with the jurors, decide that a case is going to take a long time, and therefore not sit on Fridays or something. I don't recommend a three-week break, but certainly shorter days, a four-day week.... If a case is going to take four or five months, a judge is not going to sit every day, hopefully, because it's just not going to work. The jurors are going to lose patience and it's not going to work.
It's a human system, and I really think judges with case management are managing. They know what's coming, that breaks are important, and that jurors want breaks. There's nothing the matter with saying to jurors, “We're going to sit until three o'clock today, or we might...what do you think?”
The foreman or somebody is going to say, “Let's go home,” or “No, we'll sit.”
It's a human thing. It's up to the management of a case. That's what judges are skilled in doing and are being trained to do more often.