This is an update by Joel Ebert, who is covering the Don Blankenship trial with Ken Ward Jr.

Several new court filings in the Blankenship trial today. The first is a response from U.S. District Judge Irene Berger denying Blankenship’s defense attorneys’ emergency motion regarding jury instructions.

In their emergency motion, the defense asked Berger to clarify her orders to the jury. Here’s what they wanted the judge to say:

“I wish to follow up on my instruction before lunch to continue your deliberations. As I instructed you previously: [I]t is your duty as jurors to discuss this case with one another in the jury room. You should try to reach agreement if you can do so without violence to individual judgment, because a verdict – whether guilty or not guilty – must be unanimous. Each of you must make your own conscientious decision, but only after you have considered all of the evidence, discussed it fully with your fellow jurors, and listened to the views of your fellow jurors. Do not be afraid to change your opinions if the discussions persuade you that you should. But do not come to a decision simply because other jurors think it is right or simply to reach a verdict.”

This morning, Judge Berger filed her response, which reads:

After careful consideration, finding that the jury has deliberated only for a period of hours after hearing approximately five (5) weeks of testimony, and finding that the Court has previously instructed the jury in accordance with the proposed emergency instruction, the Court does hereby ORDER that the motion be DENIED.

The second filing comes from the government. This one is essentially transcripts from the audio recordings, some of which the government used during the trial, as well as other documents, including news articles and citations the government used during the trial. As of right now, all of the documents attached to the filing are not publicly available via PACER.

The third filing from today is a motion by the Associated Press asking Judge Berger to release information about the jurors.

Juror information is one of the issues that we have been fighting to gain access to for a while.

The motion, written by Sean McGinley, concludes:

The right of public access as held in Baltimore Sun, supra, clearly applies here, as the jury was chosen over a month ago, and there is no constitutionally valid to withhold the names and addresses of the trial jurors. The Associated Press therefore requests and moves the Court to direct the Clerk to release the names and addresses of the trial jurors immediately.

Check out the entire filing here.

As of this afternoon, Judge Berger has not responded to the request.