A trial judge is not obliged to discharge a jury of her own motion where the parties have deliberately and repeatedly declined to seek a discharge, even in an extraordinarily long and disrupted trial. An applicant who emphatically resisted discharge at trial cannot complain on appeal that the trial judge should have taken that course. Extraordinary trial length may itself constitute a mitigating factor in sentencing, distinct from pre-trial delay, where the offender's liberty was curtailed for a protracted period by the requirement to attend court.
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