Jurors speak out on mistrial of former Colorado deputy accused of killing Christian Glass
Former Clear Creek County Sheriff's Deputy Andrew Buen will be retried on two charges in connection with the shooting of Christian Glass after a jury failed to reach a decision last week on second-degree murder or misconduct. The trial ended last Friday with a partially hung jury.
The jury did not reach a decision on whether Buen is guilty of second-degree murder or misconduct for his role in Glass' killing in 2022. The jury did convict him of reckless endangerment.
The jurors deliberated for several days before reaching their decision.
Buen was employed as a deputy with the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office in 2022 when, on June 10 of that year, he responded to a call of a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. Glass had gotten stuck while trying to turn around on a dirt road and called police for help.
The foreperson for the jury, Kristi Englekirk, came to a hearing Monday afternoon with the Fifth Judicial District Attorney's Office. She says all but one person agreed Buen should be found guilty on all counts, but this lone juror refused to budge from their opinion.
"It was kinda like, 'agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, NOPE! Agree, agree, agree, agree,' and that was how it was with every portion of it," Englekirk said.
She feels confident that the lone juror had an inherent bias towards law enforcement that prohibited her from finding Buen guilty.
"We had an unreasonable person we were trying to reason with," Englekirk said. "Just can't get very far with that. A lot of frustration and disappointment to at least 10 of us that it was very clear he is guilty on all three, so it was disappointing to have to hang."
Another juror, Linda Marshall, spoke with CBS News Colorado's Spencer Wilson. Her name had been circulated locally as the lone juror responsible for the outcome of the hanged jury, but she said that's simply not true.
"I felt livid," Marshall said of leaving the courtroom Friday.
"I thought that it was unjust, and we had had three frustrating days, two weeks of sitting in uncomfortable chairs," Marshall said. "I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe her reasoning."
She agreed that the lone juror seemed steadfast in her conviction, regardless of the evidence presented to her.
"I did not know what was in her head, but it seemed that she had a preconceived notion of what she was going to do from the beginning and would not budge," Marshall said. "I've been pretty angry about how it turned out because, to me, it was obviously 'guilty.'"
Englekirk, an attorney herself, said she's not sure what trying to charge that juror would do, considering the case has already been declared a mistrial on two charges. But she said if the court has enough evidence to prove they were biased from the get-go, there are options.
"There is criminal law in Colorado that provides for those kinds of sanctions; jury tampering, perjury, other charges that could be brought," Englekirk said. "That's up to the court, I don't know for certain if there was an agenda, I just have my perception of how they were acting and what they were saying."
In court, the judge alluded to the idea of changing the jury instructions, as well as the questionnaire to better select a jury for the next trial. Right now, that's set on the calendar for Aug. 12 to Aug. 30.
That has the potential to push the cases of other officers charged in this shooting further back as well, as all of them requested dates after Buen's, as they anticipated his verdict would affect their charges as well.
