A Baltimore judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in a case against two men accused of attempted murder and witness intimidation after a juror said she felt intimidated herself and refused to deliberate.
The abrupt end to the trial of Yusef Winston-Bey and Victor Shuron, who are accused of gunning down a man who planned to testify against them in a Baltimore City case days later ? came after the jury passed Judge Robert Kershaw a note indicating one of them felt too “scared” to continue.
The female juror was waiting for a bus outside the circuit courthouse after a full day of deliberations Tuesday when she spotted two men she recognized from the courtroom during the trial, according to the note. She said one pointed and she could read his lips saying, “There goes one of them right there.”
“She says that now she doesn?t want to vote on the charges that are left one way or the other,” the jury foreman wrote.
The trial, which started last Thursday, will begin anew Dec. 13, though jurors indicated they had reached agreements on some of the charges against Winston-Bey and Shuron, who allegedly shot Donnie Hill after following him in a van into the Waverly Shopping Center on Greenmount Avenue on Nov. 27, 2006.
The jurors agreed they “can?t come to an agreement on the last couple of charges left unanswered,” according to the note.
Mark Van Bavel, attorney for Shuron, called the halt “a great big disappointment.” Winston-Bey?s attorney, Margaret Mead, said the two men spotted by the juror were not associated with her client.
The attorneys said the suspects had credible alibis: A clerk at a Towson pool hall testified she sold Winston-Bey a lottery ticket at the time of the shooting.
Family memberstestified Shuron was in New York that day.
Prosecutor Doug Guidorizzi called Hill the “only credible witness who saw what happened.”
“They made eye contact,” Guidorizzi said. “He had just seen those eyes moments before on Victor Shuron?s face moments before the shooting.”
