A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case of an Oxnard teenager accused of killing a gay classmate.
The vote was 7 to 5 in favor of finding Brandon McInerney guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Jurors in the case, in which McInerney fatally shot 15-year-old Larry King in a junior high school computer lab, were ordered earlier Thursday to continue deliberating despite failed vote.
[Updated at 4:31 p.m., Sept. 1: McInerney was stoic as the judge declared a mistrial, but after jurors left he smiled at his family members, some of whom he hadn’t seen in three years, and blew a kiss to his girlfriend. King’s family did not react and left the courtroom without commenting.]
The mistrial brings to a close a trial that has been followed closely by gay-rights groups that have fought hard to protect gay and transgendered students from campus bullying.
But as the weeks of testimony continued and a more nuanced portrait emerged of what was happening at E.O. Green Junior High before the shooting, it also raised a host of thorny questions.
The prosecution says it was a calculated murder carried out in part because McInerney was exploring white supremacist ideology and didn't like homosexuals. Defense attorneys painted a different picture, that of a bright but abused 14-year-old who snapped after being sexually harassed by King.
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