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It explained when people are legally required to retreat in self-defense cases.
That was a critical element of the trial and the jury struggled with the issue. Hawthorne had been charged with shooting and killing her husband, Cleveland Hawthorne, during a confrontation in a vehicle in a church parking lot in 2018 in Canton.
After roughly 25 hours of deliberations, the jurors couldn t produce a verdict and deadlocked 6-6. The trial ended with a hung jury after the panel had considered the factors and circumstances leading up to the shooting death.
The trial was emblematic of how difficult it can be for jurors to reach a consensus in self-defense cases. And jurors across the state will have more to consider in future cases with the new version of Ohio s self-defense law, also referred to as Stand Your Ground.
By Ed Balint, The Canton Repository
CANTON A mistrial was declared Thursday after jurors couldn t reach a verdict in the case of a woman who contends she fatally shot her husband in self-defense after a confrontation in a vehicle in a church parking lot.
Deliberations began Tuesday morning and totaled about 25 hours before jurors said they were deadlocked over the fate of Classie Hawthorne in Stark County Common Pleas Court.
The 36-year-old Canton woman is charged with voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the death of Cleveland Hawthorne in May 2018.
The trial began last week and was handled by attorneys with the Ohio Attorney General s Office, who had been appointed special prosecutors.
They made small talk, exchanged greetings but didn t know each other well.
But on May 21, 2018, she found herself rushing to find Cleveland Hawthorne on his stomach in a nearby church parking lot on Concord Avenue SW. He had been shot in the chest and was taking his last breaths. I was tapping him and saying, Come on, come on, Maxwell recounted, her voice weakening. She heard him moaning. I was just crying, talking to him and he took one last moan, and that was it.
Maxwell described those events while testifying Thursday on the second day of Classie Hawthorne s voluntary manslaughter trial in the shooting death of her husband, Cleveland.