Quote of note (which reminds me of Edgar Ray Killen's jury more than anything else):

One juror said much of that account simply failed to convince them. For example, he said, none of the jurors believed the officer's description of a first encounter with Mr. Zongo in which he said the art restorer had lunged at him and then run away.

"We knew he was lying," the juror said. "Some of us used other words. You know, like embellish. One of the holdouts liked that word a lot. On the other side, a lie is a lie and if you don't believe that, then how can you believe anything else?"

Another sticking point for the majority, that juror said, was why the officer had chased Mr. Zongo to within an arm's length of his gun, even though he acknowledged knowing that Mr. Zongo was not armed. Officer Conroy testified that he fired twice just as he managed to jerk away from Mr. Zongo, and that seconds later, he fired two more shots. "He never lost control of his gun," the juror said. "Why are you still shooting at someone who doesn't have a weapon?"

The direction of the gunshot wounds in Mr. Zongo's body also seemed to clash with Officer Conroy's testimony, the juror said. Ballistic evidence indicated that the bullets tore into Mr. Zongo's body and traveled downward, indicating that Officer Conroy did not fire at Mr. Zongo from his hip, as he said. Jurors said they were also troubled that at least one bullet hit Mr. Zongo in the back.

Even the central pillar of Officer Conroy's testimony - his account of a life-or-death struggle in which he said Mr. Zongo had fought to get his gun - was not believable for most of those jurors who said they had voted for conviction.

"The majority of us thought he made an error in judgment," another juror said. "We feel on that day he acted unreasonably in causing the death of Mr. Zongo."

Jury Deadlocks on Shooting by an Officer
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Having come within a single vote of conviction, a Manhattan jury declared yesterday that it was hopelessly deadlocked and could not reach a verdict in the trial of Bryan A. Conroy, a police officer who killed an unarmed man in a warehouse in Chelsea in May 2003.

Just after noon on their sixth day of deliberations, 12 weary jurors declared in a note to Justice Daniel P. FitzGerald of State Supreme Court that "no further deliberations will resolve our differences." Justice FitzGerald then excused the panel, which formally ended the two-week trial of Officer Conroy, who was charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed African immigrant. The case will be tried again.

Two jurors interviewed yesterday said that the jury had recessed on Friday with one lone holdout, a man who had a question of reasonable doubt. But by the time they reconvened yesterday, that juror was joined by another juror, a woman, effectively destroying the hope of the 10 other men and women to reach a unanimous verdict, according to the jurors who were interviewed. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying only that they were among the majority who voted to convict.

"Everybody likes resolutions, but some issues just don't lend themselves to it," Justice FitzGerald told the jurors at the end of the trial. "This event is probably one of them."