Jurors stuck again in trial for ex-officer

Correction: Capt. Terry Hastings has been a Little Rock police officer since the mid-1970s. His time with the department was incorrect in this story.

Josh Hastings walked out of court Thursday with a third trial in his future after a second Pulaski County jury could not decide whether the former police officer committed a crime when he killed a teenage car-burglary suspect.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen declared a mistrial for the hung jury and lifted a contempt-of-court citation against Hastings’ lawyer, Bill James.

The judge, who could have fined or jailed James for violating court rules, said he was satisfied once James said he understood the judge’s rules and promised to follow them.

Griffen said James risked tainting the jury by making an untimely evidentiary argument Tuesday during the trial, Hastings’ second. James is already facing a $25,000 contempt fine from the judge from the original trial in June, which also ended with a hung jury.

The mistrial pronouncement Thursday afternoon came after jurors deliberated about 12 hours over two days.

Hastings is charged with manslaughter in the August 2012 shooting that killed Bobby Joe “Weedy” Moore III. Hastings was a five-year police veteran when he was dispatched to a west Little Rock apartment complex to investigate a car-burglary complaint.

While there, Hastings said, he had to shoot at a car that tried to run him down. The 15-year-old Moore was the driver. He was shot in the hand, shoulder and the side of his head, the latter killing him.

At trial, Moore’s teenage friends, who had been in the vehicle with him, testified that they had been “checking cars” in the parking lot after a night of driving around looking for fun. Police were called after the teens’ efforts set off a car alarm.

Police investigation into the shooting contradicted Hastings’ account of being in danger from the vehicle. He was arrested less than a month later. The findings from the investigation also contributed to his termination from the department where his father, Capt. Terry Hastings, has been an officer for almost 20 years.

Griffen scheduled Hastings’ next retrial for three weeks in May. The 27-yearold Benton man is to make his next court appearance at an April pretrial hearing. The judge also said that he would again lead the jury-selection process, instructing the lawyers to submit questions that they wanted prospective jurors to answer two months before trial.

After announcing the mistrial, Griffen did not ask whether jurors were favoring any verdict, but dismissed them with his thanks and a personal salute to their efforts. He noted that jurors are typically required to stand when the judge enters court, but that he would stand as they exited in tribute to their service during the nine days of proceedings.

“Allow me to stand up while you walk out,” he said.

The seven women and five men deliberated about 5½ hours Wednesday and almost six hours Thursday before telling the judge that they would never be able to agree on a verdict, whether it be for manslaughter, an acquittal or the lesser misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide.

Manslaughter carries up to 10 years in prison, while the maximum incarceration time for the negligent-homicide charge is a year.

Jurors first signaled that they could not reach unanimous agreement by mid afternoon Thursday, about four hours into their second day of deliberations.

“It is an absolute certainty that we will not agree,” a note from the jury stated.

Receiving the note, Griffen consulted with Hastings and the lawyers in a private meeting before reconvening jurors in the courtroom. He read to the jury from a scripted statement, known as the dynamite instruction - its language approved by the Arkansas Supreme Court - calling on jurors to continue their efforts to reach an accord for a “reasonable time,” but without sacrificing any deeply held beliefs.

A little under two hours later, the jurors again notified the judge through a note that they remained at odds. Griffen, after again consulting Hastings and the lawyers, returned the jurorsto the courtroom and announced the mistrial.

The jury in Hastings’ first trial, in June, deliberated about 10 hours over two days before a mistrial was declared.

Prosecutors called the shooting criminally reckless. Jurors were instructed to evaluate whether Hastings had acted like a reasonable person would in the same situation. If they decided that Hastings had deliberately ignored the risk of death that shooting into the car carried, the law required a manslaughter conviction, according to the jury instructions.

If they believed that he didn’t know better than to do what he did, he would be guilty of negligent homicide, jurors were told.

Prosecutors claimed that Hastings was never in any danger and knew it, so he did not have legal justification to shoot.

In his closing argument Wednesday, James pointed out that Hastings had been a police officer dispatched to the apartments to investigate a complaint about criminal activity. He asked the jury to think about why Moore and his friends - Keontay Walker, 17, and Jeremiah Johnson, 14 - had been there.

“There’s been no evidence [Hastings] wasn’t doing anything but his job,” James said. “End this nightmare for Josh Hastings and find him not guilty.”

Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson told jurors that Hastings had disgraced his uniform, turning it into nothing more than a costume to hide his wrongdoing. Hastings was more concerned about making an arrest than he was in living up to his duty to protect and serve the public, the prosecutor said.Moore never had a chance to surrender before Hastings killed him, Johnson said.

“[Police] are entrusted with the lives of everyone in the community. You don’t get to decide which lives are worth protecting,” he said. “[The teens] needed arresting. They didn’t need killing. What the defendant is hoping is you won’t care about Bobby Moore.”

Hastings testified in his first trial, maintaining that he feared for his life when he opened fire but also admitting that he did not know who was driving the car when he shot.

He did not take the witness stand in the second trial, and his attorney did not call any witnesses. In the first trial, he called six witnesses, including Hastings.