Samuel DuBose: Mistrial Declared With Jury Deadlocked in Police Shooting Case

By Ryan Felton, Guardian UK

13 November 16

 

Ohio jury deliberated for 25 hours in murder trial of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing as activists demand immediate retrial

n Ohio judge on Saturday declared a mistrial in the case of a white police officer charged with the murder of an unarmed black motorist, prompting activists to demand “system-wide accountability” and an immediate retrial.

Twenty-six-year-old University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing shot 43-year-old Samuel DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on 19 July 2015.

Tensing testified that he feared he would be killed when DuBose dragged him with his car while trying to drive away. Prosecutors said repeatedly the evidence contradicted Tensing’s story.

The jury, of which 10 members were white and two black, was seated on 31 October. It had deliberated for 25 hours since Wednesday, following judge Megan Shanahan’s instructions.

Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said jurors had been leaning towards convicting Tensing on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, but could not agree. Deters said he would decide within the next two weeks whether to try the case again.

The shooting was one of a number across the country that have raised attention to how police deal with African Americans. Tensing was fired from the university police force.

The Countdown to Conviction Coalition, a local activist group, said in a statement that video of the incident – which showed Tensing firing point-blank at DuBose’s head – and the fact he was wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt under his uniform at the time of the shooting did not “add up to a hung jury”.

“We know that the so-called justice system itself is biased,” the statement said. “It is a racist institution, proven to have scales that tip away from the people of color.”

The coalition planned a protest for Saturday afternoon and called for an immediate retrial. “That Ray Tensing is currently free and walking around in public is a travesty,” the statement said. “This result further confirms that the criminal justice system is designed to ensure that victims of state-sanctioned murder have no recourse.”

In the afternoon, nearly 1,000 protesters marched through downtown Cincinnati. Police moved some people out of the street after they briefly blocked a streetcar line.

The protest grew after several hundred people left a rally opposing the election of Donald Trump as president and joined with others chanting: “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

Earlier this year the University of Cincinnati, which fired Tensing shortly after the incident, reached a $5.3m settlement with DuBose’s family. In a statement, the university’s interim president, Beverly J Davenport, said the outcome of the trial “cannot and will not … divide us”.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to building a just community anchored in trust, care integrity and equity,” she said. “Our campus and our community will come together to listen, to heal and to partner for positive and lasting change. More than ever, our communities need us – and we need each other – to be beacons of a better and brighter future.”

A civil attorney for the DuBose family, Al Gerhardstein, said he met Deters after the mistrial was declared.

“The family thanked him for a strong presentation,” he told the Guardian, “but they made it very, very clear that they definitely want to see the case put before a new jury and that this thing get retried.”

DuBose’s family felt supported by the prosecutor and the community, Gerhardstein said, but felt the mistrial was a “terrible way to get any sort of resolution in this tragedy”.

“While the news isn’t good and this is not a good day for our criminal justice system they are not alone,” Gerhardstein said.

Jurors arrived back at the Hamilton County courthouse on Saturday morning, a day after judge Megan Shanahan told them twice that they had all the information they needed to reach a verdict.

The judge’s first instructions on Friday came around noon, when jurors told Shanahan they could not come to a unanimous verdict on murder or voluntary manslaughter charges. The judge advised them to keep working. She did not then grant a request by Tensing’s attorney to declare a mistrial.

Late in the afternoon, Shanahan briefly convened the jury, deflected a question about the definition of arrest and again ordered them back to work. The question related to conditions under which DuBose could have been considered to be evading arrest. The judge said it would be inappropriate for her to answer.