After hearing the court’s instructions and arguments of counsel, the jury shall retire for deliberation. An officer shall be sworn to keep them together in some private and convenient place and not permit any person to speak to or communicate with them or to do so himself except upon the order of the court, or to ask them whether they have agreed on a verdict. He shall return them to court when they have agreed and the court has so ordered, or when otherwise ordered by the court.

Enacted by Chapter 15, 1980 General Session