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	Jury Deliberations in Third Day By Kevin O'connor Times Argus October 9, 2009 http://www.timesargus.com/article/20091009/NEWS02/910090320/1003/NEWS02 BURLINGTON – A jury appeared deadlocked Thursday after more than 10 hours of deliberation on whether Vermont's Catholic Church should pay for negligence in hiring and supervising a pedophile priest. A five-man, seven-woman panel has spent two days considering whether the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese is liable in the Chittenden Superior Court case of Michael Keppler, a 44-year-old Burlington painting contractor who says the former Rev. Edward Paquette fondled him about two dozen times when he was a preteen altar boy at his hometown Christ the King Church. The jury must determine whether the diocese failed to protect Keppler in the late 1970s. If members find negligence, they then must decide how much to award Keppler in compensatory damages and, if warranted, additional punitive damages. On Thursday, after five hours of deliberation, the jury sent a note to Judge Helen Toor seeking guidance on what she meant in her instructions about awarding punitive damages if members found "the diocese knew that there was a great risk of harm to others." Three hours after that, the jury sent a second note to the judge saying it had discussed "one specific point" since delivering its first note and couldn't reach agreement. Toor told the jury to keep trying, noting the effort and expense invested by lawyers and court staff to prepare and present the case — the latest in a seven-year saga involving nearly 40 negligence lawsuits. Without hearing further word at 4:30 p.m., the judge sent jurors home for the evening and asked them to return today at 9 a.m. Paquette, now an 80-year-old Massachusetts retiree, worked in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976 before he was suspended from the priesthood in 1978 and defrocked by the Vatican last spring. Contact: kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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