No decision yet on whether to retry Christopher Schurr

Yahoo

09-05-2025

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker has not yet decided whether to try again after a jury deadlocked and a mistrial was declared in the case of Christopher Schurr, a former Grand Rapids police officer whom Becker charged with second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Lyoya.
'It's a process and I'm not going to rush into it,' Becker told reporters inside the Kent County Courthouse in downtown Grand Rapids after the mistrial was declared Thursday morning.
He said he had informed the Lyoya family that he was not prepared to make a decision. He could not offer a timeline for when he would make up his mind, but said, 'I'm not going to let this drag out.'
Mistrial: Jury deadlocks in former GRPD officer's murder trial in death of Patrick Lyoya
He said he was disappointed but not surprised that the the jury could not reach a verdict.
'We were hoping to get a conclusion. We thought we'd put a good case forward. Obviously, the jury thought differently. They were hung,' he said.
Having spoken with the jury, Becker knew how many fell on either side of the case, though he refused to discuss the details.
However, defense attorney Matthew Borgula said jurors were 'overwhelmingly in favor of acquittal and there were holdouts on the other side.'
'Sometimes this happens where you can't get 12 people off the street to agree as to very important decisions,' Borgula said. 'My sense is that they worked very hard to come to a conclusion and sometimes you just can't.'
He said he had not had much chance to talk to his client yet, but he knew Schurr 'wanted some resolution' to a case that has been pending for three years.
'I think he felt that the jury took the time to deliberate and he appreciates that,' Borgula said. 'He obviously wanted it to be done.'
The murder case stemmed from the April 2022 death of Lyoya. Schurr, then a Grand Rapids Police Department officer, pulled Lyoya over that morning because his license plate didn't match the car he was driving. Video shows Lyoya running away from Schurr and an about 2.5-minute struggle between the two, including them grappling over Schurr's Taser. Ultimately, Schurr, who was on top of Lyoya trying to hold him down, shot him in the back of the head.
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The prosecutor said the shooting was not justified. Schurr claimed self-defense. A series of appeals from his legal team meant it was more than three years after Lyoya's death that the case finally went to trial, with testimony last week and the case going to the jury Monday. On Tuesday, the jury told the judge it couldn't reach a verdict. She told them to keep trying. They did, but returned Thursday morning to say they were hopelessly deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial.
Becker said the questions that divided jurors were the ones laid out in court. They struggled to land on whether they should consider the totality of the circumstances (as the prosecution argued) versus the moment of the shot was fired (as the defense argued). They had differences on the dangers posed by Schurr's Taser during the struggle.
'They were on point,' Becker said. 'They were discussing the issues that I think both sides had.'
The jurors had their own feelings about the case, he said, but he did not get the sense there was a lot of tension between them and he thought they made a genuine effort.
'They did the best they could. They had differences of opinion, but I think they were talking about it and it wasn't hostile, at least the sense I got when I was talking with them,' Becker said.
He said while the jury indicated some progress was made between Tuesday and Thursday, asking it to keep trying would have been fruitless.
'One of the instructions is don't give up your deeply held personal beliefs to just reach a verdict, and that was phrased in the (jurors') note (to the judge), essentially saying, 'Hey, if you want to debate more, somebody's going to have to do that,'' he said. 'Judge Mims made a correct decision, saying, 'Yup, you've come as far as you can.''
He praised jurors for paying close attention, taking good notes, asking thoughtful questions and taking the case seriously, acknowledging it was neither easy nor simple.
'This happens,' he said of the mistrial. 'This happens quite a lot in general cases, but especially if you look across the country, there's a number of police-involved incidents where it ends up in a hung jury quite a bit. We always knew this was a possibility. It's a difficult case.'
Borgula, Schurr's defense attorney, agreed it was a 'good jury.'
City of Grand Rapids: Mistrial in Schurr case brings 'continued uncertainty and pain'
Professor Tracey Brame of Cooley Law School told News 8 that Becker's decision on whether to retry 'will come down to whether he thinks he can get a verdict in this case.'
Brame wondered about seating a second jury.
'It's going to be a challenge to empanel a set of jurors who not only haven't seen coverage of the case, but who have not already formed opinions of the case,' she said.
Becker did not seem worried about that.
Borgula said the second-degree murder charge never should have been filed in the first place and he hoped it would not be tried again.
'I think that it was clear based on the evidence that there wasn't enough to establish a charge in this case,' Borgula said. 'I think there was a lot of evidence at trial that was irrelevant and that shouldn't have come in. And so if there is going to be another trial, we're going to likely seek rulings from appellate courts as to what evidence is put before the jury.'
He pointed specifically to testimony from an expert called by the prosecution, University of South Carolina School of Law Professor Seth Stoughton. He said that under Stoughton's theory of 'officer-created jeopardy,' an officer would could lose his right to defend himself by following what Stoughton suggested were poor department policies.
'I think that's absolutely wrong. I think the jury was confused by the fact the prosecutor was saying that he cannot defend himself because he screwed up on whether or not he should chase him. I think that had an effect on the outcome and the fact that they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict,' Borgula said.
He said if there is another trial, the defense would ask the Court of Appeals whether such a theory should apply in a criminal case.
'And whether officers, if they make any negligent act early on, they can no longer defend themself if someone turns on them with a dangerous weapon,' Borgula said.
He said he tried to get Stoughton's testimony excluded from trial, 'but yet, it became the central issue.'
'It's clear to me, and if you listen to the prosecutor's closing statement, that he talked about the chase and whether or not that was reasonable, when the issue should have been whether at the moment of the threat, whether Christopher Schurr was in fear of great bodily harm or death and whether he acted as a reasonable officer would in that situation,' Borgula said.
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In a statement released following the mistrial, the Michigan Fraternal Order of Police criticized the prosecution as 'unjust,' arguing the prosecutor filed the case because of 'public pressure.'
Becker flatly denied that public pressure had no role in his decision. He said he makes every decision 'based on the facts and based on what I can prove.'
'If I didn't believe in the case, I shouldn't have been trying it,' Becker said.
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