AUBURN — Jurors in the trial of a Lewiston man charged with elevated aggravated assault for a June 2011 stabbing went home Thursday without a verdict.
After more than two hours of deliberation, the foreman for the 12-member jury told Justice Carl Bradford that they were not close to a decision. That disclosure followed questions earlier in the afternoon. The jury asked Bradford to repeat his instructions on “self-defense.” Jurors also wanted a closer look at the bloody buck knife recovered at the scene.
Deliberations in the trial of Raikuez Melchoirre, 36, are scheduled to begin again at 8:30 a.m. Friday.
Lawyers for both sides Thursday concluded their arguments and Justice Bradford sent the case to the jury after noon.
Throughout the three-day trial, the prosecution portrayed the stabbing as a vicious attack, in which Melchoirre again and again stabbed Richard “Buddy” Edwards Jr.
After his first stabbing wound, Edwards was hurt, bleeding and incapable of defending himself, argued Assistant District Attorney Andrew Matulis.
“After that, Buddy doesn’t pose a risk to harm a fly,” Matulis said. “The only risk Buddy poses is bleeding out. Buddy is in the corner. He is in and out of consciousness. He’s trying to keep his hands up.”
Defense attorney Maurice Porter painted an image of Edwards as a drunken thug and the incident as an “ambush.”
After drinking for hours at a party at 73 College St. in Lewiston, the two men got in a fistfight. Sometime after that fight ended — moments or minutes, according to conflicting witness testimony — the two fought again and the knife appeared.
“(Melchoirre) was getting the worst of it again,” Porter said. “Buddy was in control. Buddy was beating him, until the knife finally came out. It was not his first choice. It was not his second choice. It was his last choice.”
Melchoirre chose not to testify.
In his instructions to jurors, Justice Bradford said the self-defense justification may be used if Melchoirre reasonably believed deadly force would be used against him or if he reasonably believed the force was needed to protect himself.
“A person is never justified in using deadly force if he provokes the encounter leading to the use of deadly force,” Bradford said.
Edwards testified Tuesday to stab wounds on his face, shoulders, knee, chest and abdomen. He said he spent about a week in the hospital, endured several surgeries and spent four or five months in a wheelchair. He said he continues to suffer painful nerve damage to a hand and knee.
If convicted, Melchoirre faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
dhartill@sunjournal.com
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