After the case of a Orange County judge accused of murder for fatally shooting his wife ended on a zero Monday, Jeffrey Ferguson, the man in the center of the legal battle spoke exclusively with NBC Los Angeles on Thursday.
Hetty Chang de NBCLA was the only reporter who sat with Ferguson at his home in Anaheim Hills, where he shot and killed his wife.
The first thing Ferguson did was to show the crew of NBCLA the family hall where he and his wife, Sheryl, were sitting when he said that he accidentally downloaded his gun and killed her.
Ferguson said he was relieved and disappointed at the same time when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.
“In the count, 11 to one. That was a blow to my emotions, but I have no choice but to move on, ”said Ferguson.
The man who faces a possible new trial said to sit in a court room, accused of his wife’s murder was like “being in an episode of Twilight Zone.”
“It’s as if you were taken from your reality, and you collapsed without warning a completely different world, a world that is not particularly friendly to you,” said Ferguson. “After doing what I have done in the criminal justice system for 40 years, finding myself in that chair was disconcerting and difficult to understand.”
In response to critics who can still think that the murder was intentional, Ferguson insisted and reiterated again and again, that it was an accident.
“I’m not going out with anything because I lost it, and she lost my life,” he said while sobbing.
The interview with NBCLA followed a null trial that was declared on Monday at the 74 -year -old Ferguson murder trial. He faced a murder position in the death of August 3, 2023 to his wife Sheryl, Sheryl, at Anaheim Hills’ house of the couple.
The jury, which could have condemned Ferguson for second degree murder or involuntary homicide, divided 11-1 in favor of a guilt verdict for a second-degree murder charge shortly after resuming deliberations on Monday morning. The deliberations began on February 26.
As the deliberations extended in the new week, the jury said they were at a dead point, but continued efforts to make a decision. The Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles, Eleanor Hunter, as a jury on Thursday afternoon, how many votes they had taken and the main one said several.
Hunter asked them to return to the deliberations and argue.
The jurors left early on Friday, telling the judge to supervise the case that they were “exhausted.”
“Justice falls into the hands of 12 strangers who were taken from their daily lives and gave him the immense responsibility of weighing the evidence and determining guilt or innocence,” said Orange County District Prosecutor Todd Spitzer. “Although we are disappointed with the result, we will review the questions presented by the jury along with the facts and the meeting with the victim’s family to make a decision in the coming weeks with respect to this case. The district prosecutor has always been available to meet with the victim’s family in case it is something they request. “
A hearing to establish a new trial date is scheduled for Thursday.
“A hanging jury is not a failure,” said defense lawyer Cameron Talley outside the courtroom. “A hanging jury is part of the process. It is also a success in its own way.
“The surprise was that the jury was out of so long. I have never had a jury for two weekends. But I think it is a testimony of how hard this jury worked. “
During the final arguments, the lawyers of the Prosecutor’s Office tried to convince the jurors that Ferguson was upset after a dispute with his wife in a restaurant. When two were back at home, Ferguson took out his gun and killed his wife in a tragic chain of events that justify a conviction for murder, prosecutors said.
“Evidence, credible evidence, took the gun, was angry, was angry,” said the attached prosecutor of District Seton Hunt to the jurors on Wednesday. “He took out the gun, pointed it out and killed.”
The defense lawyers argued that the shooting was accidental.
“No, absolutely not. It was an accident, ”said Ferguson when Talley asked him if he intended to shoot his wife.
The Fergusons and their son Phillip went to the Mexican restaurant El Cholo that day, but Sheryl Ferguson left after her husband made a hand gesture imitating a weapon during an argument, according to the testimony. Later at home, Phillip Ferguson said he listened to his mother to say something in the sense of: “Why don’t you point to me a real weapon?”
When calling him the most reliable story of the shooting, Hunt played the video of the son who later told the police: “I turned around and he takes out a gun and points to her and shoots.”
Hunt described the judge’s account, who lost with the glock took out an ankle cover and accidentally downloaded when he tried to place it on a crowded coffee table, “ridiculous.”
Phillip Ferguson said his mother’s last words were: “He shot me,” said Hunt.
Hunt suggested that Ferguson could have climbed and keep the gun as he usually did every night before bedtime.
“I could have done many things,” said Ferguson.
Ferguson’s blood alcohol level was .065 percent when measured seven hours after the shooting, Hunt said. An expert declared that it was probably around .17 percent, or almost double the legal limit to drive, at the time of the shooting, Hunt said.
At a press conference after the judicial procedure, Spitzer said he plans to review some of Ferguson’s cases. Ferguson, who has been in Judge in Orange County for nine years, testified that sometimes he took some drinks during lunch and that he could have been intoxicated during the audiences he was presiding over.
Talley challenged the prosecution’s argument by saying that he derives from a misunderstanding of how weapons work. Talley pointed out how Hunt referred to loading bullets in the gun during the trial when the weapon wears magazines. Talley also said that the bullet route as a pathologist in the case testified that it refutes any legal theory that Ferguson’s arm was crooked at an angle of 45 degrees.
Talley pointed out a detective’s testimony about how far the weapon projectile housing would arrive if the Prosecutor’s Office was firing. But Talley said he found himself right next to the coffee table, which was consistent with his theory of an accidental shooting.
Talley also argued that the homemade surveillance video also indicated that there was no snout flash, which was also consistent with an accidental failure. The bullet crossed the victim’s abdomen “slightly to the left” and left the upper right of his back, which would coincide with the angle of where the defendant said the weapon failed, Talley argued.
Talley said there is no evidence that his client was angry, but, he said, he was trying to make peace and finish the conflict.
“It’s not angry,” he said. “Where does this drunk anger come from?”
