Defense: Lone juror caused mistrial in murder case
One holdout juror refused to acquit the Nogales-area rancher accused of killing an unarmed Mexican migrant on his property, according to his defense team.
After four weeks of trial and more than two days of jury deliberation in the trial of rancher George Alan Kelly, 75, one of Kelly’s defense attorneys said seven jurors found Kelly innocent, while one found him guilty, resulting in the mistrial that was declared Monday.
Brenna Larkin, one of Kelly’s attorneys, told The Arizona Republic on Tuesday that only one of the eight jurors was holding out for a guilty verdict. Prosecutors did not respond to The Arizona Republic’s requests for comment, and the court’s spokesperson said she could not corroborate the information.
Kelly is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the death of Gabriel Cuen Buitimea and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after being accused of putting another man, Daniel Ramirez, in danger as they were crossing his 170-acre spread near the international border.
Buitimea and Ramirez were undocumented and looking for work in the U.S., seeking to escape extreme poverty. They were running south toward Mexico on Jan. 30, 2023, trying to evade U.S. Border Patrol agents when Kelly allegedly shot at them nine times with an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle, according to the prosecution, led by the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office. The defense maintained that Kelly saw five armed men crossing his property and firing warning shots up in the air. No bullet was ever retrieved.
On Friday, after nine hours of deliberation, the jury was at an impasse and could not decide on a verdict. However, presiding Judge Thomas Fink said they needed to take more time to deliberate. Jurors returned Monday morning to deliberate, and by the afternoon, they sent a note to the judge saying they still could not agree on a verdict.
Later that afternoon, Fink
them into the courtroom to give them additional instructions on what to do at an impasse.
He later told the courtroom he noticed the jury seemed frustrated.
“There was obviously some frustration there that I hadn’t seen before, which is understandable,” Fink said before offering the option of giving them a break and allowing them to return the next day to deliberate.
The defense agreed with that option and noted how tired the jurors looked.
“They looked pretty exhausted when you brought them out here,” Larkin said. “I think it would be beneficial to at least give them an opportunity perhaps to break for the day and try again tomorrow.”
The jury responded that resuming deliberations would not change juror opinions.
After calling for a mistrial, Fink set a status hearing on Monday for prosecutors to decide whether to proceed with a retrial.
Prosecutor Kimberly Hunley told reporters she would decide with the victims on whether the County Attorney’s Office will move forward with a retrial.