HATTIESBURG – A jury failed Saturday to reach a unanimous decision on whether Carl Brandon should spend the rest of his life in prison for the killing of Port Gibson attorney Allen Burrell, prompting a mistrial on the most serious of the charges against the former Claiborne County road manager and Vicksburg High School employee.

Brandon will face trial again on the murder charge, and selection of that jury will begin June 11.

He was found guilty of aggravated assault and shooting into an occupied dwelling, charges stemming from Brandon’s firing five shotgun blasts into former county administrator James Miller’s house and wounding road department clerk Loretha Porter with a pistol pulled from his pocket during a struggle over his shotgun.

Sentencing on those two charges is to be announced. He will face up to 50 years in prison.

&#8220After five hours’ deliberation, the jury is at an impasse on the charge of murder/manslaughter,” read a message from the jury of eight women and four men to Judge Frank Vollor just before the verdicts were read at 2:45 p.m. Saturday.

Jurors had begun deliberations at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

At earlier request reviews for the judge and attorneys for the state and the defense, two members of the panel inquired whether it could render a verdict of &#8220guilty of murder by reason of insanity” and clarifications of the legal definition of manslaughter, the lesser of the two most serious charges facing Brandon.

Jurors were then notified by Vollor’s instruction &#8220a killing of a human being with malice aforethought is done with deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed. The chief distinction between murder and manslaughter is the presence of deliberation and malice in murder and its absence in manslaughter.”

Defense attorney Ed Blackmon Jr. moved for a mistrial after these reviews, a request denied by Vollor. After the jury made it clear no verdict was likely Saturday, Vollor agreed to the mistrial motion by the defense.

&#8220Jurors have aligned themselves and voting has not changed and does not figure to change,” one message said.

Emotions inside the courtroom were largely guarded, with friends and family of Miller’s and Porter’s exchanging relieved hugs. Burrell’s wife, Michelle, and Claiborne County District Attorney Alexander Martin remained in a somber embrace for several minutes near the attorney tables.

Summonses to 450 potential jurors were received before the trial, which was moved to Hattiesburg Lodge No. 397 to provide for a larger facility than the circuit court in Claiborne County.

Vollor indicated screening for potential jurors in the second trial again will be done in Claiborne.

Brandon’s defense had argued for an insanity verdict, based on expert testimony covering ground in the field of psychology and psychiatry including delusional behavior and cognitive function, all stemming from his 1997 firing from his county position and subsequent inquiry into sexual harassment claims.

Those claims were appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2002, where the state’s high court ruled against Brandon.

Throughout the three-day trial, defense attorneys presented memos and other lines of questioning aimed at convincing jurors that Burrell and Miller were chief among those persuading county supervisors to fire Brandon.

The state countered with its own expert psychiatrist, who called into question the grading methods on Brandon’s state of mind cited by the defense.

Burrell had practiced law in Port Gibson for 30 years and had been counsel for the Claiborne County Board of Supervisors since 1980. In addition to his wife, he was survived by three children.