LOCAL : Deadlocked Jury Resumes Its Work
Jurors in the murder trial of Danny Davis Ornelas, 19, of Huntington Park, who Thursday had declared themselves “hopelessly deadlocked,” resumed deliberations this morning after the trial judge reinstructed them on the legal meaning of “implied malice aforethought.”
The definition is critical to the prosecution’s effort to convict Ornelas of second-degree murder in the Sept. 1 death of Debbie Killelea, who was struck by a speeding car and killed in an alley behind her Balboa Peninsula home while a passenger videotaped the incident.
Ornelas is accused of having had “implied malice aforethought” by speeding up the alley and failing to brake when he saw Killelea and her two sons walking there.
The prosecutor, Dep. Dist. Atty. Thomas Goethals, argued that Ornelas, though drunk at the time by legal definition, knew what he was doing.
The jurors Thursday declared themselves deadlocked, but Orange County Superior Court Judge Luis A. Cardenas ordered them to continue deliberations.
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