Just before lunch, the jury in the latest jail brutality case involving members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell a note saying they were “hopelessly deadlocked” on one count for each of the two defendant. (There are four counts total.) Presumably, we are to believe they are unanimous on the rest of the counts.
This is the trial in which LASD deputies Joey Aguiar and Mariano Ramirez are charged with assaulting an allegedly non-resistant Men’s Central Jail inmate named Bret Phillips on February 11, 2009, then covering up their actions by writing false reports that depict Phillips as the aggressor.
Judge O’Connell responded with a judicial tool that is legal in California called the Allen Charge.
Specifically, the Allen Charge is an instruction given by the court to a deadlocked jury to strongly encourage it to continue deliberating until it reaches a verdict. Some states prohibit Allen charges, because they see them coercive, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their use in Allen v. U.S., 164 U.S. (1896). The Allen Charge is variously known as the dynamite charge, the nitroglycerine charge, the shotgun charge, and the third-degree instruction.
To remind you, here are brief descriptions of the four counts on which the jury has been deliberating.
1. Conspiracy to violate Mr. Phillips’ civil rights by agreeing to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate” him.
2. This is basically the assault-to-produce-bodily-injury count.
3. In this count, Deputy Ramirez is charged with writing false reports stating that Phillips attempted to head butt Deputy Aguiar in the face, and also attempted to “violently kick” Aguiar.
4. Similarly, in the final count Deputy Aguiar is charged with writing false reports stating that Phillips had “viciously kicked his legs at deputies” and continued to do so.