Thursday, 4:30 PM
Mistrial declared in the murder trial of Jason Meeks
By Globe Staff
A Suffolk Superior Court judge declared a mistrial today in the murder trial of Jason Meeks because a jury remained deadlocked after five days of deliberations.
Meeks, 26, is accused of killing Alvaro Sanders in a November 2001 shooting at a Roxbury auto repair shop. The mechanic doing the work was shot in the leg, but lived.
"We have every intention of re-trying this defendant at the earliest opportunity," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. "The murder of Alvaro Sanders and the family he left behind demand our continued best efforts to hold his killer accountable."
Meeks is being held without bail on the murder charge and other unrelated cases.
Meeks gained notoriety as a 10-year-old when he wrote Governor William Weld and asked him to stop the violence in his neighborhood. The pair met for lunch in 1993 at the John Marshall Middle School.
Long after meeting with the governor, Meeks fell into crime and was arrested several times before being charged with the death of Sanders. In 1998, Meeks was charged in a gang-related shooting that killed an 18-year-old man in the South End. He was acquitted of the murder charge, but was jailed on unrelated gun charges.
