A mistrial was declared Thursday in the trial of Kiara Totty, charged with reckless homicide in the 2021 shooting death of Ja’Kia Battle. Jurors deliberated for nearly four hours before telling the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — Jurors in the reckless homicide trial of Kiara Totty told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked following four hours of deliberation on Thursday, resulting in a mistrial in the case.
At around 3:30 p.m. jurors reportedly indicated they were at an impasse. Allen County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Reed summoned the jurors into the courtroom to urge them to continue their deliberations but, according to the court bailiff, the jurists told the judge they were adamant that a verdict could not be reached. The vote was reportedly 10-2, with little hope for a unanimous verdict.
Reed subsequently discharged the jurors from their duties.
Totty was charged with reckless homicide in connection with the 2021 shooting death of 23-year-old Ja’Kia Battle. Testimony in the two-day trial concluded Wednesday and jurors received the case after hearing closing arguments from attorneys involved in the case Thursday morning. The Lima woman did not take the witness stand during the trial and no defense witnesses were called.
In his closing statements to jurors, Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Josh Carp said Battle’s death “was a tragedy” but maintained that “the defendant was reckless” in causing the fatal shooting.
Evidence presented during the trial showed Totty on video explaining to investigators that Battle died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound she sustained on Oct. 18, 2021, while at Totty’s home on Edgewood Drive. During an interview at the Allen County Sheriff’s Office on the night of the shooting, the 34-year-old defendant told investigators that Battle — with whom she had an ongoing casual romance for nearly a year — had accidentally taken her own life with a .38 caliber revolver.
Totty said Battle was playing around with a gun in the living room of the residence just minutes before the sound of a gunshot was heard.
Totty exited the kitchen to find Battle sitting on a couch and then falling to the floor clutching her chest, she told investigators. The woman said she called 911 and law enforcement soon arrived at her residence. Battle was taken to Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center, where she died the following morning.
Carp disputed Totty’s version of events on that evening, citing testimony from a deputy coroner from the Lucas County Coroners Office that the gunshot that killed Battle, in his professional opinion, did not come from close range. Dr. Jeffrey Hudson cited the absence of gunpowder “soot” or stippling that is usually present in suicide cases to support his findings.
“The science is telling you that this shooting couldn’t have been self-inflicted,” Carp told jurors. “Ja’Kia Battle did not cause her own death and Kiara Totty was the only other person in the home.”
Defense attorney Steve Chamberlain said testimony from DNA and fingerprint experts failed to link Totty to the handgun and said that Hudson’s report on the presence of gunshot residue resulted in an “indeterminate” finding.
“You have to stop where the science tells you to stop,” the attorney said. “There’s not enough evidence here to make the leap the state wants you to make.”
Chamberlain agreed that Battle’s death was a tragedy, but urged jurors “not to look at this case through the lens of sympathy.”
“What happened? The fact is, we don’t know … except that it was a tragic, tragic accident. The gun went off and we don’t know why and we don’t know who,” Chamberlain told jurors.
