What enforceable order did the judge give?
None. It's not strictly relevant to the distinction I'm making. He gave an instruction. At least I'm assuming the remark in question was given during the instructions.
If I were a juror, I would listen intently to what the judge said about, in my fatuous example, finding assualt or negligence. Especially when you consider that juries are selected for stupidity, I can see a juror thinking, "Well if the judge says I have to find him guilty, I guess I have to find him guilty." In Virginia jury nullification is against the law.. Consequently if I ever was on a jury and wanted to nullify, I sure as hell wouldn't let ANYONE know what I was doing.
My point about giving orders and such was just to argue that different officers of the court have different authority, and get paid different kinds of respect and can command different levels of obedience. Id suggest that juries expect advocates to make a case, while they expect judges to tell them what's what.
From the decision:
I begin by recalling the terms used by the judge in instructing the jury as to the available verdicts. As I have already mentioned, he directed the jurors “to retire to the jury room ... and ... to return to the court with a verdict of guilty”. To the judge himself this direction left no other course open to the jury. When two jurors later asked to be excused, the judge stated, in the jury’s presence:I have a matter that the jury raises. It is apparent that some of the members either didn’t understand my direction this morning, that is that they were to return a verdict of guilty . . . or they refused to do so.And then, lest the jury be left in doubt as to the binding effect of his direction, the judge added:And once they [the jurors] are directed to do that [to return a verdict of guilty], it’s up to them to bring in — to abide by the direction.