An Arizona judge has put a stop to the possibility of a new trial for rancher George Alan Kelly, who faced charges in the fatal shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, a Mexican man, on his property. Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink handed down the decision on Tuesday, siding with the defense and dismissing the case with prejudice, as per FOX 10 Phoenix. This means the charges can't be pursued in a future court action following a previous mistrial this April, which saw the jury unable to come to a unanimous decision.
The prosecution had argued for keeping the door ajar to potentially retry the 75-year-old Kelly if new witnesses were to manifest. However, Judge Fink ruled that another trial would "not be served by letting prosecutors wait for a tactical advantage to retry Kelly," which he equated to harassment of the defendant, as reported by U.S. News & World Report. Fink expressed his belief that a subsequent trial would only lead to either another hung jury or more likely an acquittal, highlighting the jury's previous imperviousness to the prosecution's arguments.
During the original trial in the city of Nogales, which shares a border with Mexico, prosecutors accused Kelly of recklessly firing at a group of men from 100 yards away, resulting in the death of 48-year-old Cuen-Buitimea on January 30, 2023. Kelly claimed he fired warning shots into the air, not intending to hit anyone. The only eyewitness, a Honduran migrant, testified he had been walking alongside Cuen-Buitimea that day. Fink noted that the absence of the bullet that caused the fatal injury rendered the forensic evidence unreliable, as per U.S. News & World Report.
