ST. LOUIS — A jury reached a verdict for one of the former officers accused of assaulting a fellow officer who was working undercover as a protester in 2017.
Dustin Boone was found guilty of aiding and abetting the deprivation of Officer Luther Hall’s civil rights, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
The jury was hung in the case of Christopher Myers, who was charged with destroying evidence to impede an investigation.
The decision came after the jury was urged again to reach a decision after saying they could not come up with a unanimous decision.
Senior United States District Judge E. Richard Webber delivered the Allen law, or hammer instruction as it's more commonly known, to the jury at about 1 p.m. The law pleads with jurors to try again to reach a verdict, reminding them that a trial is costly and no one is more informed about the facts of the case than they are at this point.
Webber, who was appointed as a federal judge by former President Bill Clinton, said he has never had to deliver a hammer instruction during his career.
It reads, in part: "In a large proportion of cases absolute certainty could not be expected" but the verdict must be the verdict of each individual juror.
Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum wanted the jury to be asked if additional deliberations would be helpful and objected to the reading of the instruction.
This is the second trial for former Officers Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers.
In March, a jury acquitted Myers of depriving Detective Luther Hall of his civil rights, but couldn't reach a decision on whether he destroyed Hall's cellphone to hide the video it caught of the assault because he knew it could be used in an investigation against him.
The same jury hung on whether Boone aided and abetted the deprivation of Hall's civil rights.
Hall was working undercover as a protester in 2017.
The jury began its deliberations at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday.
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