told about the note. However, the court accepted the trial judge’s statement that an attempt to contact counsel was made because the trial judge directed the sheriff to call counsel, and Crockett does not provide us with clear and convincing evidence that the judge did not give the sheriff this direction. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Armed with that conclusion, the Illinois Appellate Court then assessed whether the delay in responding to the jury was unreasonable. The affidavits of the jurors show that the trial judge received the note from the jury and did not respond for fifteen minutes to one hour. The Illinois Appellate Court cited several cases in which a judge did not respond to a jury’s question: People v. Sims, 166 Ill. App.3d 289, 116 Ill.Dec. 706, 519 N.E.2d 921, 935 (1987) (<HOLDING>); People v. Chandler, 110 A.D.2d 970, 971, 487
holding appellant could not obtain a new trial so that jury could answer liability question because the charge instructed the jury not to answer the question based on its answer to a prior question and because appellant did not object to this instruction holding that it was reversible error for a trial court to fail to answer a jurys question on the burden of proof for two hours after which the jury returned a verdict holding that it was not reversible error for a trial court to fail to answer a jurys question for fifty minutes after which the jury returned a verdict holding that it was error for the trial judge to answer a jurys question without giving defendants counsel an opportunity to be heard before the trial judge responded holding that it was not reversible error to fail to answer the jurys question where the trial judge was presiding over closing arguments in a codefendants case when the question was asked and the jury reached a result before the judge could confer with the parties