"Hung jury" that's the announcement that came out of the Supreme Court 45 minutes ago in the case of Darnell Macdonald who was allegedly shot by policeman Sherwood Wade on June 14 of 2003.
After deliberating for 5 hours and 45 minutes, the jury announced that it could not arrive at a verdict. With that Wade was set free by the instruction of trial Judge Adolph Lucas. Lucas did warn him, however, that he can be re-arrested if the DPP wished to bring back the case.
One of the critical pieces of testimony came from police force armourer Albert Ciego who said that the slug that he was given from the bullet that killed Macdonald was, quote, "damaged and mushroomed" so he could not say which firearm had followed the slug. Justice Lucas repeated this to the jury in his instruction, making it clear that Ciego could not say that the gun the accused had fired the round that killed Darnell Macdonald. The prosecution led by Marjorie Moyston called 11 witnesses, while defense attorney Simeon Sampson had Wade give a statement from the dock.
The case made headlines in June of last year when Macdonald and some friends were leaving a Ladyville nightclub behind a police pickup truck. The prosecution claimed that Constable Wade was firing his weapon wildly from the back of the pickup truck and that shot killed Macdonald.