Prosecutors are headed back to court Monday afternoon to announce whether they will retry an Arizona rancher after a jury deadlocked last week over whether or not to convict him in the shooting of a Mexican man on his property. The jurors in the case against George Alan Kelly were unable to reach a unanimous decision on a verdict after more than two days of deliberation. Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink declared a mistrial on April 22.
He was in a group of men that Kelly encountered that day on his cattle ranch. His two adult daughters, along with Mexican consular officials, met with prosecutors last week to learn about the implications of a mistrial. Prosecutors had said Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards away on his cattle ranch. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but argued he didn’t shoot directly at anyone.