Expert weighs in on YNW Melly mistrial. Was this outcome uncommon? What happens now?

Three days is all it took for a Broward jury to reach an immovable stalemate on deciding unanimously if rapper YNW Melly murdered his two childhood friends more than four years ago.

That may appear to be a quick turnaround but Craig Trocino, director of the University of Miami Law’s Innocence Clinic, tells the Miami Herald that really isn’t the case.

On Saturday, Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy declared Melly’s case a mistrial after it was confirmed there was a hung jury — meaning the jurors were unable to reach a verdict.

The jury started deliberations on Thursday and while that may seem a short amount of time compared to the length of the case, which took more than fours years to get to this outcome, Trocino says the jury did their job to the fullest.

“They considered [the case], they weighed all the evidence and they argued back and forth among themselves,” he said. “[They] kept voting and voting and kept having a split. That’s generally what happens in a hung jury. ”

Before running the Innocence Clinic, which works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted in Florida, Trocino has worked with death sentenced inmates and was the counsel of record on more than 200 direct appeals, UM’s website said.

Trocino warns that comparing hung juries is difficult especially with defendants who are famous.

“These high-profile publicity cases are usually pretty bad cases to use as a bellwether of how the normal day-to-day criminal justice system works,” he said. “This case had its quirks.”

Noting that, hung juries in Florida death penalty cases isn’t generally seen very frequently, he said.

“Juries, they end up taking on a life of their own. So what’s common in one jury is not common in other juries,” Trocino said. “Certainly there were members of this jury who didn’t believe the state proved its case.”

Melly, whose real name is Jamell Demons, is accused of shooting to death his childhood friends Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas Jr. in an alleged drive-by cover-up after spending the night of Oct. 26, 2018, at a Fort Lauderdale recording studio. Williams and Thomas, both aspiring rappers with the YNW collective, were known as YNW Sakchaser and YNW Juvy, respectively.

What does a mistrial mean for YNW Melly?

A mistrial does not mean Melly is free or innocent of the charges, in fact he is still facing them.

The Broward County State Attorney’s Office said it will be retrying Melly on the double murder charges.

This new trial will be “a little bit more interesting and less pins and needles,” Trocino said.

“One of the things about a hung jury and a retrial is now everybody on both sides has seen the other side’s cards so strategies can be modified now,” he said. “...You already got a sort of dress rehearsal, so to speak.”

Apart from how different the litigators may attack the case, Melly would be dealing with an entirely new jury.

“On the new trial it’s going to be completely different because we’re gonna have 12 different personalities hearing slightly different evidence in a different order in a different way.”

Trocino emphasizes that just because Melly’s case ended in a mistrial doesn’t guarantee anything in a retrial.

“I don’t think you can say anything beyond this particular jury was a hung jury because a different group of 12 people might have been a not guilty or might have been guilty,” he said.