Brandon McInerney To Be Retried In Adult Court; Hate Crime Stipulation Dropped; Retrial To Begin November 21

The Ventura County District Attorney's Office will retry the Brandon McInerney murder case in adult court, it was announced Wednesday in court. Prosecutors said they will retry McInerney on the murder charge with the special allegation of lying in wait, but will not include the hate crime charge. According to The Ventura County Star, the next hearing was scheduled for November 21 in Ventura County Superior Court. It was not decided where the trial will be held. The first trial was held in Van Nuys because of the pre-trial publicity in Ventura County. The murder trial ended last month in a hung jury. Prosecutors spent the past weeks determining whether to push to have the case reheard with the murder and hate crime charges or amend the charges. After the trial ended, prosecutors said they still believed the case was a first-degree murder with a lying-in-wait special allegation. Including that special allegation makes it mandatory that the murder case be tried in adult court, not juvenile court as McInerney's lawyers have sought. McInerney, now 17, was 14 when he fatally shot Larry King, 15, in the back of the head in an Oxnard classroom in 2008. His nine-week murder trial ended Sept. 1 when seven jurors thought he was guilty of voluntary manslaughter and five thought he was guilty of murder. One juror said McInerney's age was one of the sticking points that resulted in the hung jury. McInerney's attorney Scott Wippert had argued juvenile court was the best venue for any trial because McInerney would have a chance to be rehabilitated and be a productive member of society. If McInerney were tried in juvenile court, he would be released by the time he was 25. The District Attorney previously had offered McInerney a deal of 25 years to life in prison. But Wippert said any deal that included an indeterminate sentence would be rejected.