'Bullying' in jury room forces mistrial in Asbury Park gang execution case

FREEHOLD - A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case of two men accused in a 2017 gang execution in Asbury Park because a juror reported being bullied by fellow jurors after four days of deliberations.

"This is a rare and unusual situation," Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O'Malley said in declaring a mistrial after the six-week trial of Avery Hopes and Vernon Sanders in the execution murder of Denzel Morgan-Hicks.

"This juror has reported unusual pressure and bullying by other jurors," O'Malley said.

To excuse that juror, replace her with an alternate juror and allow the panel to continue its deliberations "would be to give in to bullying, and that is not how I work," the judge said.

"For that reason, I am declaring a mistrial," O'Malley said.

The juror in question first asked to speak to the judge in private late Tuesday afternoon, and then conferenced with the judge in the presence of prosecuting and defense attorneys at a lengthy sidebar.

She returned Wednesday to continue deliberations all day, but at the end of the day again requested to speak to the judge.

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O'Malley said at that point, the juror reported she felt chest pains and had to excuse herself to the bathroom to "hide" from fellow jurors.

"It is not fair to ask her to continue to feel ill," the judge said, in excusing the juror from further service.

The juror reported having attention deficit disorder and said she had trouble concentrating on the evidence and felt she could not fairly evaluate it, the judge said.

"She indicated that the jurors were unhappy with how long it was taking her to decide the case," O'Malley said. "They wanted her to see it the way they saw it and didn't understand why it was taking so long.  ... They were displeased that she had not simply fallen in line."

Upon the declaration of a mistrial, the victim's mother and other relatives left the courtroom without commenting.

The defendants could be seen smiling before being led out of the courtroom.

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O'Malley scheduled a conference for April 5 to discuss what will happen now with the case. Both defendants have been held in jail without bail since their arrests in 2018.

Hopes, 27, of Asbury Park, and Sanders, 38, of Brick, are charged with the Nov. 22, 2017, murder of Morgan-Hicks, 27, a former Asbury Park resident who was living in Barnegat.

The defendants are accused of firing repeatedly on Morgan-Hicks as he returned to his sport-utility vehicle after visiting friends in an apartment on Prospect Avenue in Asbury Park on the night before Thanksgiving 2017.

Caitlin Sidley and Matthew Bogner, assistant Monmouth County prosecutors, alleged during the  trial that Hopes and Sanders, both members of the Bloods street gang, executed Morgan-Hicks, a member of the rival Crips, in a hail of gunfire because he was rumored to have fatally shot a Blood in 2011 in Asbury Park.

Morgan-Hicks, who died on the spot, was never charged in that May 2011 shooting death of Edric Gordon, 21, of Neptune.

Defense attorneys Paul Zager, representing Hopes, and John Reilly, representing Sanders, argued the state's case was filled with discrepancies and based on the testimony of co-conspirators who lied to get good plea bargains.

Nine women and three men on the jury began deliberations on March 15 and continued the process for almost three full days before sending a note to the judge about 3 p.m. Tuesday saying the panel was "at a standstill."

At that point, the judge instructed jurors to continue deliberations.

By then, the panel already had heard playback of the testimony of several witnesses and watched playback of a number of surveillance videos presented as evidence in the trial.

O'Malley, in ruling she would not substitute the excused juror with an alternate juror, noted that the original panel had already deliberated "for a significant amount of time" and "has clearly made some decisions regarding the issues in this case."

The assistant prosecutors declined to comment on the mistrial, as did Reilly.

"It's like a hollow victory," Zager said. "The criminal justice system was the winner today because the judge applied the facts and applied the law in such an intelligent and compassionate way."

O'Malley, in her ruling, said the juror in question on Tuesday referred to fellow jurors as "plastics,'' a pop-culture reference to bullies from the film "Mean Girls,'' and said the peer pressure she was experiencing from them at one point in her life may have made her resort to violence.

"She was being pushed to the brink,'' O'Malley said. The following day, the juror assured the court that the "friction that she described had resolved.,'' O'Malley said. However, she added she "could not see the evidence as the others did,'' the judge said.The juror said, "They are all saying the house is white, and I don't see it as white,'' O'Malley reported.

Noting that the juror at times was crying, O'Malley said she found her to be "credible, candid and sincere.''

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park gang trial case ends in mistrial after 'bullying'