(NewsNation) — Prosecution and defense attorneys are planning to meet Monday to discuss what’s next after a judge declared a mistrial in the case of an Arizona rancher accused of shooting and killing a Mexican man on his property.
Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly walked into court Monday morning confident he would be acquitted in the death of a Mexican national who died on his property. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the judge declared a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach an agreement after days of deliberations.
Now, it’s up to prosecutors to decide if they want to try the case again.
Kelly, who is 75, said multiple times over the week that he was confident he would be going home a free man. Now, after a four-week trial and three days of deliberations, he’s still waiting to find out his future.
A jury had to decide if Kelly was guilty of shooting and killing 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, a Mexican national, on his property in January of 2023.
Kelly was charged with second-degree murder, but there were also lesser charges on the table, including negligent homicide or manslaughter. However, the group of eight jurors could not come to a consensus, reaching an impasse twice over the past three days. Kelly’s co-counsel told NewsNation the decision was seven to one in Kelly’s favor.
“It is what it is, and it will be what it will be. Let me go home,” Kelly told NewsNation after court was dismissed. “I will keep fighting forever. I won’t stop.”
On Monday, the state and defense will reconvene to discuss the next steps, which could possibly include a retrial. Kelly’s lawyer anticipates some challenges for the state, citing a lack of recovered bullets and difficulty securing testimony from a key witness who is from Honduras but lives in Mexico.
Kelly’s attorney said the jury didn’t even believe the witness was there and said the state couldn’t definitively prove where Kelly was standing when firing his weapon or the time of death.
Prosecutors 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 he didn’t shoot directly at anyone.
For the defense, all they had to do was cast a shadow of doubt on the prosecution’s case that someone else could have done it in an area that is known for rampant human trafficking and drug smuggling with a cartel presence.
The community has been dealing with the case for the past 14 months, but it hasn’t received much national media attention. Many people NewsNation spoke to said they were aware of the case but didn’t know the details.
One individual told NewsNation there was a possibility the cartel was present on the property, and he wasn’t sure the state conducted the investigation properly.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
