A judge recently declared a mistrial on the two most serious counts against former NJ police chief Frank Nucera, Jr., who faces charges of hate-crime assault and excessive force for allegedly slamming a handcuffed black teenager, Timothy Stroye, into a door during a 2016 arrest. Jurors seemed to split the difference between the government’s and defense’s portrayal of events. They agreed with prosecutors that Nucera had lied when claiming that he did not touch Stroye, but they were not in unanimous agreement that Nucera had committed an assault.
Managing partner of McCarter’s Newark office and former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz said “it’s not common but it’s not entirely unusual” for a jury to deliver a partial verdict and then continue deliberating on other counts.
“It really depends on what the jurors tell the judge and, as long as they indicate a desire to continue to deliberate, generally the judge will allow that to continue,” he said.