NEW YORK - A judge's decision to keep a feuding jury deliberating for 12 hours just days before Christmas could be grounds to overturn a manslaughter verdict, criminal defense lawyers said Wednesday.

The lawyers, who were not connected to the case, criticized Suffolk County Judge Barbara Kahn's unusual Saturday night session. The Long Island jury ultimately convicted a black man of shooting a white teenager to death in a racially charged encounter outside his home.

Two jurors have said they had been leaning toward acquitting 54-year-old John White, but changed their votes in the final hour after Kahn ordered the jury around 8 p.m. Saturday to keep deliberating, and indicated to jurors they would return on Sunday if they didn't reach a verdict.

“They probably felt the judge was saying, go along with the other jurors or you're not going to get out of here,” said criminal defense attorney Ed Hayes.

He and other attorneys said they were surprised by the extended deliberations for the jury, which sent notes twice saying it was deadlocked, and said the judge's actions could present serious grounds for appeal.

A telephone message left at Kahn's chambers was not returned Wednesday. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office also did not respond to a request for comment.

Judges are traditionally given wide latitude to obtain verdicts from deadlocked juries. The state's criminal code allows deliberations to be suspended for only a day, unless a weekend or holiday occurs. Attorneys in the case said that some jurors had said they had plans to leave town for Christmas on Sunday or Monday.

Saturday was the fourth day of deliberations following a four-week trial for White, who said he feared for his family's safety when he brandished a gun in front of an angry group of white teenagers gathered outside his Miller Place home. White, 54, was convicted of shooting 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr. to death on Aug. 9, 2006.

The jury told Kahn it was deadlocked on Friday afternoon; she told jurors to return Saturday. After they deliberated for more than 11 hours and sent out another note saying they couldn't agree, Kahn asked jurors to keep talking and indicated she would schedule deliberations on Sunday, with time off for religious services.

Many jurors appeared near tears; one began rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. The jury returned a guilty verdict an hour later.

Juror Francois Larche has said he had been holding out for an acquittal, but decided with another juror to change their votes because of pressure from the judge and hostile fellow jurors.

White's attorneys were considering a post-trial motion to set aside the verdict because of juror misconduct. One of his lawyers, Frederick Brewington, likened the judge's decision to return a deadlocked jury to deliberate on a Saturday night to “a pressure cooker.”

“This timing was looming large over their head,” he said.

Defense attorney Gerald Shargel said that the judge's apparent pressure for a verdict could be grounds for appeal.

“There's a very good argument ... that this is undue coercion,” he said.

Gerald Lefcourt, a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, said that forcing a jury to deliberate so long just before a holiday could skew any verdict.

“People will ... just do anything to get out of there after awhile,” he said. “It was unreasonable pressure on the holdouts.”