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For eight days the discussions and re-enactments continued, never acrimonious but always intense. The jurors applied no pressure on each other. On the ground floor, a hundred or so journalists and half as many dedicated trial followers waited. The celebrity of the victim and the social standing of the accused, their intriguing affair, and the misogynist overtones that many women found in Tarnower's treatment of Harris, all combined to make the trial a press spectacular, a debate over man's inhumanity to woman. Said one courtroom regular, a sharp-eyed lady of about 60: "I pray for Jean Harris every night. I know all about men. I know what they did to me. They went out with my girlfriends." And so there were television crews catching catnaps in the corner, and authors calling their agents from the makeshift phones in the lobby-cum-pressroom. After more than 47 hours of deliberation, a final secret ballot was taken. A unanimous verdict was reached. A note was passed to Judge Russell Leggett, and he reconvened the court.
Then came the final scene: Jean Harris, primly clad in a suede jacket and brown skirt, her hair held back by a tortoise shell band, was led in, staring straight ahead. Each day of the ordeal seemed to have shriveled her a bit more. The jurors, stone faced and grim, did not look at her, seated at the defense table, as they filed in. "I understand the jurors have arrived at a verdict," said Judge Leggett. Von Glahn rose and nodded yes. The clerk asked: "How do you find the defendant, Jean Harris, on the first count of second-degree murder?" Replied Von Glahn: "Guilty!" He was asked about two lesser charges, second-and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. "Guilty!" he said. "Guilty!"
Two of the defense lawyers started to cry. Aurnou, who has announced plans to appeal but has not yet said on what grounds, explained later that he did not present any psychological testimony, which some jurors said would have been useful to the defense, because he did not believe Harris acted out of insanity. The judge set her sentencing for March 20; the woman once known as "Integrity Jean" faces a minimum of 15 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.
A sheriffs deputy moved behind Harris as the judge remanded her into custody. To her attorney she whispered: "Joel, I can't sit in jail." With the verdict, gone was the $220,000 Tarnower had left her in his will; under state law convicted murderers forfeit any bequests from their victims. Gone also are the comfortable weekends at the house in Westchester County she considered home, gone is the man she loved. The deputy touched Harris' shoulder. She rose slowly, shook off the hand. Softly she said, "I must go now," and left to spend her first night in jail as a convicted killer.
—By Walter Isaacson. Reported by James Wilde/White Plains
* Under New York State law, first-degree murder is reserved primarily for those who kill a law enforcement officer.