Jurors to return to deliberations
By John Joyce
Published in News on September 12, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/BOBBY WILLIAMS
Defense attorney Charles Gurley, left, talks with his client, Javonta Ellis, on Thursday during the murder trial of Ellis and Stephon Jennings. A Wayne County jury says it is deadlocked on a verdict on Ellis, who is accused of killing Kevin Bell in June 2012. Deliberations resume Monday.
The jury has reached a partial verdict in the trial of two Wayne County teenagers charged with murder, telling the judge Thursday they are agreed on the guilt or innocence of one defendant and deadlocked on the other.
Deliberations will continue Monday in Wayne Superior Court.
Judge John E. Nobles excused jurors for the weekend in the first-degree murder trial of Stephon Jennings, 19, and Javonta Ellis, 17, after six hours of deliberations on Thursday.
Jennings and Ellis are charged in the shooting death of Kevin Bell, 34, in June 2012.
Jurors began deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Thursday after five days of testimony.
At about 4 p.m., the jury foreman informed Nobles a verdict had been reached on Jennings, but not Ellis.
Nobles eventually dismissed the jury at 4:30 p.m. with orders to return Monday morning due to the fact that a juror was excused today to attend a funeral.
The mother victim's mother, Carolyn Bell, declined to comment on having to wait three more days for a decision.
Ellis's grandmother, Linda Ellis, had only a few words about waiting to hear a decision on her grandson's guilt or innocence.
"They've held them up here so long," she said "I feel in my heart they didn't have any evidence on my grandson."
There have been some procedural questions raised by lawyers throughout the case.
After the jury was dismissed to deliberate Thursday morning, Jennings' attorney, Mary Darrow, said, for the record, that one of the jurors has been seen nodding off throughout the trial.
Nobles said he had seen the juror's head drop a time or two, but each time the juror snapped back to attention. He noted Ms. Darrow's objection, but said the trial would continue.
Before releasing them for the weekend, Nobles cautioned the jurors not to look at any media reports or coverage of the trial over the weekend.
"You are not deliberating now," he said, instructing jurors to save the deliberating for the jury room on Monday.
Asked earlier in the day how he thought the decisions might go, Charles Gurley, defense attorney for Ellis, said it was now time for the jury to decide.
"It's not up to me. It isn't about me, and it's not up to me," he said.