Opinion ID: 1058303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Trial (Prieto I)

Text: In 2007, a jury in the Fairfax County Circuit Court found Prieto guilty of the capital murder of Raver, the capital murder of Fulton, rape, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of murder, and grand larceny, as charged in the indictments. The circuit court ordered that the jury would make a determination of Prieto's alleged mental retardation prior to receiving evidence on sentencing. The court, in essence, trifurcated the trial into three phases: guilt or innocence, mental retardation, and sentencing. The court recognized that by separating mental retardation from sentencing, some of the evidence might be duplicative. However, in the mental retardation phase, the court intended to limit evidence relating to victim impact and future dangerousness. Although evidence relating to victim impact and future dangerousness would ordinarily be presented in the sentencing phase, the court's purpose in trifurcating the trial was to focus on the issue of mental retardation. The jury would only address evidence relevant to the death penalty if it determined Prieto was not mentally retarded. At the conclusion of the presentation of evidence on mental retardation, the jury was instructed that Prieto had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he was mentally retarded. The jury was further instructed that if it returned a verdict finding Prieto mentally retarded, the jury should not fix punishment pending further evidence, but that Prieto's punishment would be limited to imprisonment for life without parole and a fine of up to $100,000. After the jury began its deliberation on the issue of mental retardation, the court received two notes from the jury: one from the jury foreman indicating the jury's inability to come to a unanimous decision; and another from an individual juror (Juror D) stating that he was being pressured and asking to end the deliberation. Over Prieto's objection, the court gave the jury a modified Allen charge. [1] Following a lunch break and the court's receipt of a second note from Juror D along with his refusal to continue deliberations, the circuit court declared a mistrial on the grounds of manifest necessity based upon Juror D's misconduct. The court denied Prieto's motion to declare a hung jury and sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The court ruled that it had no alternative but to declare a mistrial for manifest necessity and order a retrial of the entire case.