OAKLAND — Day after day, jurors queried the judge about the law, accused one of straying from their instructions, and expressed that they simply couldn’t agree on whether an Oakland man was guilty of murder, manslaughter, or innocent altogether.
In the end, they never had to decide. On Feb. 7, as juror deliberations were set to enter the third week, prosecuting and defense attorneys pulled the rug out from under the whole process and resolved the case themselves. Jurors were thanked for their time and excused, left to forever wonder whether they would have reached a conclusion if given enough time.
For the defendant, Bomani Hairston-Bassette, this abrupt result means an upcoming 10-year prison term. Hairston-Bassette was accused of murdering 36-year-old Charles Wright during what prosecutors called an attempted robbery of two drug dealers, but which the defense contended was simply Hairston-Bassette responding to a deadly threat, pointing out that he was wounded during the shooting.
Hairston-Bassette ended up pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter and a gun enhancement in exchange for a 10-year sentence. He is set to be formally sent to prison on March 11, court records show.
The trial was seeped in controversy before jurors even heard one word. In pretrial motions, Hairston-Bassette’s lawyer accused an Oakland cop — an officer who’d been investigated for an illegal pot grow and arrested on suspicion of domestic violence last year — of doing an unlawful search during the investigation.
Once evidence got underway, things were upended when a key eyewitness, 40-year-old Antoine “Fuzzy” Ford, took the stand and flat out refused to testify. Judge Mark McCannon held Ford in contempt of court and ordered him to return to the courtroom twice, but to no avail.
Ford was said to have witnessed the whole thing; prosecutors contended that Hairston-Bassette attempted to rob him and Wright while they were selling drugs on Sept. 24, 2022, at the 900 block of Brockhurst Street in West Oakland. They claimed Ford returned fire, shooting Hairston-Bassette, and then drove his friend to the hospital, where Wright was pronounced dead. Ford was later sentenced to federal prison for possessing a firearm as a felon, despite contentions by his family that an Oakland detective called him a “hero” that day.
The defense, though, argued there was “no evidence” to support the robbery theory, instead arguing the evidence showed that Wright and Hairston-Bassette struggled over a gun, that Hairston-Bassette was shot in the hand during this fight, and that Ford was armed and ready with his own pistol and opened fire, shooting Hairston-Bassette a second time.
Without Ford’s perspective, jurors were left with surveillance footage of the shooting and the dueling theories of how it went down. They appeared to be hard-pressed to come to an unanimous decision, writing several letters to the judge that expressed their disagreements and posed questions. Deliberations began on Jan. 23.
One such letter inquired how to implement an instruction that asked them to consider what a person of “average disposition” would have done in Hairston-Bassette’s situation. The jurors were curious if that meant an “average” person from California, or the West Oakland neighborhood where it all took place.
Other letters asked about the law as it pertained to imperfect self-defense and manslaughter. Another accused a juror of using their “own expertise” rather than jury instructions to reach conclusions. At one point, a juror was excused for illness and replaced with an alternate, and another time jurors indicated they agreed Hairston-Bassette was guilty of gun possession, not guilty of first-degree murder, but that they were “deadlocked” on charges of manslaughter and murder in the second degree, court records show.
By Feb. 7, the conclusion had come. At 10 a.m. that day, the judge polled jurors and determined they were still unable to decide. He declared a recess, giving the defendant a chance to speak with his lawyer at 10:15 a.m.
Just 75 minutes later, it was all over. Hairston-Bassette entered his no contest pleas, after which time jurors were brought into the courtroom one last time, thanked for their service and sent on their way.