A juror who heard evidence in the trial of a White North Carolina police officer said he challenged his colleagues to determine what an unarmed Black man did to lead the defendant to fatally shoot him. “I wrote on the board: ‘What did Jonathan Ferrell do, and I underlined “do”, to warrant death: 10 shots.’ I had done this because there was nothing that I had seen in the weeks preceding that showed me what he had done,” said juror Moses Wilson, who was one of the jurors who chose to convict officer Randall Kerrick of voluntary manslaughter. “And I said that if anyone can show me what he did, I might change my vote which is going to be for conviction to acquittal, and every day, that was my challenge,” he said.
After four days of deliberations, the jury was deadlocked, 7-5 on an initial vote and 8-4 on the succeeding three votes. And when judge Robert C Ervin asked the jury foreman last Friday if further deliberations would resolve the impasse, the response was no. Ervin then declared a mistrial.
