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North Carolina jurors deadlocked in police officer's manslaughter trial Mistrial declared in case of police officer who killed former college football player
(about 4 hours later)
Jurors in the trial of a white police officer accused in connection with the shooting death of an unarmed black man say they’re deadlocked after three votes, but the judge has sent them back to continue deliberating A North Carolina judge has declared a mistrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of a white police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter in the death of an unarmed black man.
Judge Richard C Ervin brought the jury back into the Mecklenburg County courtroom around noon on Friday and asked the jury foreman where the votes stood. Judge Robert C Ervin declared a mistrial on Friday after four days of deliberations. Ervin brought the jury back into the Mecklenburg County courtroom around 4.10pm and the foreman said he saw no possibility of reaching a verdict.
The foreman said an initial vote taken was 7 to 5. The second vote, taken Thursday, was 8 to 4, and that was the same outcome when the jury voted again prior to entering the courtroom. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Randall Kerrick had faced up to 11 years in prison in the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell, a former Florida A&M football player who had crashed his car and was in search of help.
Defense attorney George Laughrun moved for a mistrial, but Ervin denied the request. Instead, Ervin ordered the jury to go back and do what it could to reach a unanimous verdict. Prosecutors said the 29-year-old Kerrick used deadly force when he shot and killed Ferrell in September 2013. They say nonlethal force should have been used to subdue the former Florida A&M football player. Two officers with Kerrick didn’t fire their guns.
Officer Randall Kerrick, who is charged with voluntary manslaughter in the September 2013 shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell. Kerrick is suspended without pay from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police force. But Kerrick’s attorneys said the officer feared for his life when he shot and killed Ferrell while responding to a breaking-and-entering call from a home where Ferrell had apparently sought help.
If convicted, Kerrick faces up to 11 years in prison. Ferrell’s death happened a little less than a year before an unarmed black man in New York and an unarmed 18-year-old black male in Ferguson, Missouri, died after separate violent encounters with police – cases that shined a national spotlight on how police departments treat minorities and sparked calls for widespread reforms. Protests and rioting followed Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson and a grand jury’s refusal to indict the officer. The unrest resumed this week as protesters marked the one-year anniversary of Brown’s death.
Protests also followed the deaths of two unarmed black men after encounters with police earlier this year in Baltimore and South Carolina. Officers have been charged in both of those cases. Kerrick’s trial, while packing the courthouse, has drawn little outside attention, perhaps because the officer was arrested and charged about 12 hours after the shooting.
Police have said that Kerrick and officer Thornell Little responded to a 911 call from a resident who notified police after Ferrell knocked on the resident’s door early on the morning of 14 September.
Some of the testimony prior to Kerrick’s appearance focused on training and whether his use of deadly force was necessary. Some witnesses testified that Kerrick told them he was afraid for his life and that he thought Ferrell was going to try to take his gun.