Jury deliberations began Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco in the state trial of David DePape, the man already convicted in federal court for the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.
A spokesperson for the Superior Court of California said deliberations began just before 2 p.m. PT and that a 30-minute warning would be given before the verdict was announced once jurors reached the verdict. The warning would be shortened as the end of the day approaches, the spokesperson said.
There is no court Wednesday due to the Juneteenth holiday.
DePape was sentenced last month to 30 years in prison after a jury found him guilty in November 2023 guilty of attempting to take then-Speaker Pelosi hostage and assaulting her husband at the couple’s San Francisco mansion in Pacific Heights in October 2022.
The attack on then-82-year-old Paul Pelosi was captured on police bodycam video after officers responded to his 911 call and found him struggling with DePape, who then knocked Pelosi down with a hammer. Just days before the 2022 midterm elections, the incident sent shockwaves through the political world and was attributed to the predictable effects of increasingly demonizing political rhetoric.
DePape admitted that he sought out Nancy Pelosi – who was in Washington DC at the time – as part of a plan to end what he perceived as government corruption, an idea reinforced by his endless consumption of right-wing media and bizarre conspiracy theories. He tearfully testified that he became a follower of Donald Trump after coming to believe that the mainstream news media repeatedly spread lies about the former president.
Opening Statements in the state trial began in late Mayone day later DePape’s federal conviction was reopened to let him speak following a procedural error during his original sentencing.
Earlier this month, the judge in the state trial granted a defense request to dismiss three charges in the case against DePape — attempted murder, assault on an elder and assault with a deadly weapon — based on the public defender’s argument that the counts fell under double jeopardy.
