Jury deliberates in capital murder trial
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
A jury deliberated for more than nine hours today without reaching a verdict in the capital murder case against
a teenager, accused of killing an Arkansas State University professor.
Seventeen year old Kirk Otis is charged in the July 20th, 2001,
shooting death of Barney Smith. Smith was a military science professor at ASU and a lieutenant colonel in the Arkansas National Guard.
Smith was fatally shot while sitting on his mother`s front porch at Stuttgart. Otis was 14 at the time.
After hours of deliberations, jury foreman Rolf Bryant told Circuit Judge David Henry that jurors were divided 11-one on a verdict. The foreman didn`t say which way the majority was leaning.
The judge sent the jury back to decide if they could reach a consensus.
Awhile later, the jury came back and the foreman told the judge that the jury wanted to continue deliberations and wanted to return Monday morning, rather than tomorrow. The judge told them to return Monday for more deliberation.
Otis faces life in prison if convicted. The judge has barred
prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against the teenager.
