As week ends, no verdict yet in Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore’s assault trial

NORTH HERO — Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore’s second assault trial is now slated to drag into its second week after jurors on Friday again failed to come to a unanimous verdict, but also told the judge that they weren’t quite ready to stop trying.

The jury is set to return to Grand Isle County Superior criminal court at 8:30 a.m. Monday for what will be its third day of deliberations, and the sixth day of the trial. The trial itself is a redo of a three-day proceeding in late July that ended in a mistrial after a different jury could not agree on a verdict.

Grismore is charged with simple assault for kicking a handcuffed and shackled detainee at the sheriff’s office in August 2022. He was a captain in the department at the time.

Around 4:45 p.m. Friday — after about eight hours of deliberations that day, and more than five hours of deliberations on Thursday — Judge Samuel Hoar asked the latest jurors if there was any additional “amount of time that you believe, if you folks were given, you would break through the impasse that presently confronts you.”

After a pause, the case’s designated lead juror, who was not identified, replied with a brief assessment: “I think there’s a slight possibility.”

“Nobody would accuse you folks of a lack of determination,” Hoar said.

Hoar had asked the jurors about a half-hour prior to decide whether they wanted to continue deliberating into the evening on Friday, or to come back on Saturday. But the jury appeared unable to come to a consensus on that question, too — leading Hoar to push the proceedings into next week.

Read the story on VTDigger here: As week ends, no verdict yet in Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore’s assault trial .