A mistrial was declared Wednesday after a jury deadlocked at 11-1 in the sanity phase in the trial of a former Vietnamese refugee convicted earlier this month of first-degree for killing his brother's live-in girlfriend and her daughter in 2004.

Most of the jurors said they felt Peter Nong Le, 63, was sane when he shot and killed Tuyet Le and her daughter Jennifer Cu, 15, in December 2004.

But a holdout juror sided with arguments from defense argument Brian Waite that Peter Le suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of his treatment in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp and later in re-education camps after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Waite argued that because of the PTSD, Peter Le could not premeditate or deliberate the killings and was legally insane at the time.

The jury impasse was announced Wednesday morning after less than a half-day of deliberations, but Superior Court Judge William Froeberg briefly delayed calling for a mistrial when the holdout juror asked to be removed from panel because she knew someone who suffered from PTSD.

She was allowed to remain on the jury, however, when she insisted she was still fair.

Froeberg scheduled a retrial of the sanity phase for April 14.

Source: OC Register