Twelve jurors were unable to reach a verdict Tuesday regarding the case of a 19-year-old man charged with the rape of a College of William & Mary student.
Because the jury did not come to a unanimous decision, the case against Jaiven Treyvon Knight will be retried in front of a new set of jurors at a later date.
Knight, A Durham, N.C., man who was arrested April 22, is accused of going to a party hosted by the accuser — a then-20-year-old junior at W&M — at her home on Lafayette Street in August 2013 and raping her while she was passed out from being intoxicated.
After a day and a half of hearing details about the party and the alleged rape from the accuser and partygoers, hearing testimony from a police officer who interviewed the suspect, an emergency room nurse who examined the accuser and an OBGYN, jurors were tasked with deciding whether the accuser was physically helpless at the time — meaning unconscious or unable to communicate a willingness to act — and whether Knight knew she was physically helpless when he had sex with her.
Knight, who had been drinking at the party along with the accuser and most of the partygoers who testified, told a police officer he had consensual sex with the woman. He said he had a conversation with her after he went to the bathroom at the party and then she started kissing him, which led to sex.
The accuser said Monday she does not remember having sex, but woke up half-naked with Knight lying next to her. Her two roommates testified Knight was lying on top of someone and appeared to be having sexual intercourse. They said when Knight came out of the room, their roommate was lying in an “awkward,” “uncomfortable” position with her eyes closed.
The prosecution argued the accuser was passed out at the time and Knight took advantage of her.
“There’s no way he could not have known that she was passed out,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Cathy Black said during her closing statement.
She recalled testimony in which Knight allegedly said he was going to try to “hook up” with someone that night.
“That was on his agenda,” Black said. “There’s his opportunity right there.”
Knight’s lawyers argued the accuser agreed to the sex and was conscious and functioning during the incident.
“Was the sex consensual?” Knight’s attorney Tim Clancy asked the jury during his closing argument. “If the answer is yes, he’s unequivocally not guilty. If the answer is ‘I don’t know,’ he’s unequivocally not guilty.”
After about five hours of deliberation, the jury — made up of six men and six women — told the court they could not agree unanimously and were sent home.
A date for the new trial will be set at 9 a.m. March 6.
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