Mistrial declared in Dustin Jefferson murder case

TOLEDO - After roughly 25 hours of deliberation, jurors Friday could not reach a unanimous decision whether Dustin Jefferson committed first-degree murder by helping kill his wife, Kerry O'Clair Jefferson.

Jury foreman Richard Griffin said he was the lone holdout for a finding of not guilty from the panel of eight women and four men.

'Being the non-guilty, I do not feel the state had met the burden of reasonable doubt that Dustin aided and abetted the crime,” Griffin said after being released from service.

Authorities tried to prove Jefferson, 40, actively participated or knowingly encouraged his mother, Ginger Jefferson, 59, in the killing. A separate jury in May 2014 convicted Ginger Jefferson of first-degree murder, and she is serving a life sentence.

O'Clair Jefferson, 32, died Sept. 25, 2013, stabbed twice in the neck. She bled to death on a hardwood floor in a house at 104 Harmon St. in Tama where she sometimes stayed with her estranged husband.

Griffin said he could concede Jefferson likely had motive, opportunity and intent. But jurors 'got severely hung up” on specific actions.

'What did he actually do?” Griffin asked. 'People felt the prosecution failed to show what Dustin actually did.”

Jurors began deliberations about noon Tuesday. According to Griffin, they took a vote early on, which came back seven for guilty, four for not guilty and one undecided. By Thursday afternoon, the vote had shifted 11-1 for guilty.

Jurors also spent time discussing the role of Saharra Martinez, according to Griffin.

She is Jefferson's sister and had spent most of Sept. 25, 2013, drinking with O'Clair Jefferson, Dustin Jefferson and Ginger Jefferson. In the afternoon, the three went for a drive in rural Tama County. An officer later picked up Martinez, who was walking along the side of a road.

Jurors, according to Griffin, wondered why prosecutors did not put Martinez on the stand.

The jury decided to keep deliberating Friday and debated until about 4:20 p.m. before delivering a note to Judge Mary Chicchelly.

'After a full and fair consideration ... the jury is unable to reach a unanimous decision,” the message read.

Defense attorney Thomas Gaul asked for a mistrial. Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren and prosecutor Laura Roan did not resist.

'Under the circumstances, the state really does agree with the defense,” Heeren said. 'The state would rather retry as soon as possible.”

Chicchelly gave no timeline but said Jefferson has a right to another trial within 90 days.

Gaul said he is 'leaning” toward asking for a change of venue, requesting that the next trial occur somewhere other than Tama County.

Earlier Friday, jurors submitted a question for Judge Chicchelly and the attorneys to discuss. They wanted to know if they could see a deposition referred to by officer Kim Schwartz during her testimony about what another witness, Amber Navarro, had said.

It was not clear from the question who provided the deposition.

After discussing the issue, Judge Chicchelly sent back a written response. She said jurors should review their instructions, particularly a direction they can only consider items and testimony submitted and accepted as evidence during Jefferson's trial.

The trial that began Sept. 21 in Tama County District Court was actually the state's second attempt to prosecute Jefferson. The first failed because of objections by Gaul about the racial composition of the jury pool.

The clerk of court's office in December 2014 summoned 105 potential jurors to possibly hear Jefferson's case. Only 86 showed up.

Jefferson is a member of the Meskwaki tribe, and Gaul at the time questioned whether the jury pool provided adequate representation of his distinct ethnicity. Native Americans in Tama County account for 6 to 7 percent of the population, according to Gaul.

Judge Stephen Jackson Jr. stopped the proceedings and postponed the trial. According to Jackson's and Gaul's calculations, had the missing 19 potential jurors shown up in December, the reason for delay might not have developed: Several of the no-shows that day were apparently Meskwaki.

For comparison, jurors in Ginger Jefferson's trial needed just a little more than two hours to reach a unanimous decision she was guilty of first-degree murder.

The jury in Dustin Jefferson's case set a record, at least for Heeren. He has been Tama County attorney since 1983 and said Friday this deliberation took more time than all others in his 32-year career.

'It's longer than I can remember - for any kind of trial,” he said.

Attorneys in this case selected the jury from an original pool of candidates called Sept. 21. They started with about 75 people, including several members of the Meskwaki tribe.

Two members of the tribe, both women, were drawn at random to be on an initial a 34-person panel. That smaller group faced questions from attorneys about their knowledge of the case and possible associations with those involved.

The two Meskwaki women were later struck from jury service by prosecutors, a fact noted by Gaul, leaving only white men and women to decide Jefferson's fate.

Gaul argued before testimony began that the jury was not a fair representation of Jefferson's Native American ethnicity. He also suggested the state had engaged in a systematic process to exclude Meskwaki from Jefferson's jury.

Heeren at the time pointed out both Meskwaki women admitted maintaining an impartial view would be difficult. Heeren told Judge Mary Chicchelly that was why the state struck the pair from the jury. The judge agreed the court's record confirmed Heeren's interpretation.