Update
Britney Dinged With Mistrial; Case Dismissed
Frank Micelotta/Sony/BMG
UPDATE: City prosecutors have announced that they will not retry the pop star in the wake of her mistrial.
"I talked to the foreman, and while I was troubled by the jurors' outside impressions, I won't ask the court to retry the case," Deputy City Attorney Michael Amerian told the court.
The case has been formally dismissed.
—————————
Oops. They couldn't do it.
After three days of deliberations, a mistrial has been declared in Britney Spears' misdemeanor driving-without-a-license case after the eight-woman, four-man jury was unable to break their deadlock.
"This does feel like a victory," Spears' attorney Michael Flanagan told E! News.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James A. Steele dismissed the jury just moments after the prosecution and defense were allowed to deliver additional closing statements to the jurors.
After five votes, the jury foreman confirmed they were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquitting the pop star. All told, the jurors deliberated slightly more than eight hours over a verdict—more time, incidentally, than the lawyers took to try the case.
"It was an 80 percent victory," Flanagan told reporters after the mistrial was declared, adding that the trial itself was pointless, considering it was a misdemeanor charge that was in question.
The jury foreman, 45-year-old Gary Moy, confirmed outside the courthouse that "the jury was deadlocked."
"A lot of people had their minds set from the beginning," he said, adding that many of his fellow jurors agreed that the trial was a waste of time.
He also said that the main sticking point for the panel was the issue of residency versus domicile, something the jury took to the judge earlier today.
A hearing to determine whether Spears will be retried on misdemeanor driving without a California license has been set for 1:30 p.m.
—Additional reporting by Ashley Fultz
(Originally published on Oct. 21, 2008, at 11:49 a.m. PT.)
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