The Supreme Court seemed divided Wednesday on whether to allow an
Arkansas man to be retried on murder charges even though a jury
forewoman said in open court that they were unanimously against finding
him guilty.
Alex Blueford of Jacksonville, Ark., was charged in July 2008 in the
death of 20-month-old Matthew McFadden Jr. Blueford testified at trial
that he elbowed the boy in the head by accident. Authorities say the
child was beaten to death.
Blueford's murder trial ended in a hung jury. The jury forewoman told
the judge before he declared a mistrial that the jury voted unanimously
against capital murder and first-degree murder. The jury deadlocked on a
lesser charge, manslaughter, which caused the mistrial.
The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled last year that Blueford should be
retried on the original charges. But Blueford's lawyers want justices to
bar a second trial on capital and first-degree murder charges, saying
that would violate Fifth Amendment protections preventing someone from
being tried twice for the same crime.
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