The jurors have gone home for another night without reaching a verdict.

Libby trial: Apparently, Fitzgerald wanted to add an alternate juror to the jury and start all over, while the defense argued that the deliberations should continue with the eleven jurors left. Judge Walton sided with the defense.

According to this report:

"Walton agreed with the defense's request that the jury will continue deliberating with 11 members, rejecting Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's request that the judge call back one of two alternates and start deliberations over. The jury had been deliberating since Wednesday afternoon.

"`I just don't think it would be appropriate to throw away those 2 ½ days of deliberations," he said. "I don't have anything to suggest that this jury is anything but conscientious and can continue.'"

Libby: A juror has been excused because she apparently was accidentally exposed to a news report about the trial. Details here.

As best that I can determine, the judge has decided to allow the eleven remaining jurors to decide the case, instead of starting all over, with an alternative juror joining them. That's significant because the jury's deliberations are not going to continue interrupted-- rather than having to begin "anew"-- to borrowl a phrase from Scooter Libby.

Why did Fitzgerald and Wells agree to go with eleven? Speculation from Jane. NRO has these ideas.

Update: NYT story just posted.

The jury is to resume deliberations in the morning.

ABC News: "Is Cheney Next?"

Libby trial: The jury has been dismissed for the day without reaching a verdict, according to the presiding judge's clerk.

No verdict after first full day of deliberations.

The best post-closing argument/trial analysis this morning: Dan Froomkin, "The Cloud Over Cheney".

Deliberations begin.

Among other things, Fitzgerald disclosed in his closing yesterday that Libby spoke to Vice President Cheney about his testimony despite being asked not to by prosecutors. In my National Journal story Monday I wrote the first detailed account of Libby's conversations with Cheney about what Libby was going to tell investigators. Almost angry, Fitzgerald told the jury: "He's not supposed to be talking to other people... the only person he told is the Vice Pesident."

The only reporter covering the case today to notice this, as best that I can determine, was Josh Gerstein, whose daily reporting on the case for the New York Sun rivals and often times better than the larger papers which have two or three reporters covering the trial. Here's his story today.

Also from Josh's story:

"Broadening his attack on the White House, Mr. Fitzgerald took a shot at President Bush, indirectly criticizing him for not firing officials implicated in the leaks about the CIA officer, Valerie Plame. The prosecutor noted that in 2003 the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said Mr. Bush would immediately dismiss anyone involved in leaking Ms. Plame's identity.

"'Any sane person would think, based on what McClellan said in October 2003, that any person involved in this would be fired," Mr. Fitzgerald said.

"The prosecutor's clear implication was that Mr. Bush failed to keep his word. Mr. Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, is still working at the White House despite having served as a source for two press accounts about Ms. Plame. A State Department official who leaked Ms. Plame's identity at least twice, Richard Armitage, resigned at the end of 2004. Mr. Libby, who quit after being indicted, has conceded discussing the CIA staffer with a Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper."

It's with the jury now.

The NYT's take on the Libby trial, on the eve of closing arguments.

This sums up the essence of the story:

"[A] close reading of the testimony and evidence in the case is more revelatory, bringing into bolder relief a portrait of a vice president with free rein to operate inside the White House as he saw fit in order to debunk the charges of a critic of the war in Iraq.

"The evidence in the trial shows Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Libby, his former chief of staff, countermanding and even occasionally misleading colleagues at the highest levels of Mr. Bush’s inner circle as the two pursued their own goal of clearing the vice president’s name in connection with flawed intelligence used in the case for war."