The second domestic violence trial of former state Sen. Jeff Woodburn has ended in a mistrial, after a Coos County jury deadlocked.
Judge Peter Bornstein declared a mistrial Thursday, after the jury twice said it couldn't reach a verdict.
It's the latest turn in a long-running legal battle involving Woodburn, who was the top Democrat in the New Hampshire Senate when he was arrested on charges stemming from a December 2017 altercation with his then domestic partner, and separate incidents that year when he kicked in the door to her house when she denied him entry and damaged her clothes dryer during an argument.
At issue in Coos County Superior Court over the past week was whether Woodburn committed assault or was defending himself when he bit his then-domestic partner in late 2017 as they struggled over Woodburn’s cell phone in the partner’s moving car after a Christmas party.
Woodburn's lawyer Mark Sisti says the mistrial in this case isn’t surprising.
"I don’t think there is any jury, based on the evidence and based on the law in this case, that would be able to come to a unanimous verdict,” Sisti said Friday. “They will never come to a guilty verdict on this."
In 2021, a jury convicted Woodburn on multiple counts of criminal mischief, assault and domestic violence. The New Hampshire Supreme Court later overturned the assault and domestic violence convictions and ordered a new trial, on the grounds that Bornstein — who also presided in the first case — had wrongly barred the jury from considering Woodburn’s self-defense claim.
The New Hampshire Attorney General's office, which did not object to the mistrial in court Thursday, says it is still weighing whether to seek a third trial for Woodburn.
“We will make that decision after due consideration,” said spokesman Michael Garrity
Woodburn's criminal mischief convictions and 30-day jail sentences meanwhile remain on appeal to the state Supreme Court. Woodburn’s lawyer says his client remains committed to fighting those.
“There is no question that he is in this all the way,” Sisti said.
