The Judge in the Who Killed Karter Trial Seals Which Way the Deadlocked Jury Is Leaning | Pt 17

Judge Katherine Lumsden knows something about this jury that she is not allowed to tell the lawyers, the public, or you. On Day 4, she put that silence on the record. This is the State of Georgia v. Kianna Davis, the case people are calling the toddler beating murder trial. Two-year-old Karter Ambrose was fatally beaten over a weekend in November 2020, and the State says his own mother did it. Two adults were with Karter in the window he was hurt: Kianna Davis, who is on trial here, and Kiyon Benton, a friend of hers who is charged separately and is the empty chair in this courtroom. He is not the child's father, and he is not in this room, but the jury has heard he was there too. Davis is presumed innocent, and no verdict has been returned. Nothing about this case was ever clean. Karter died in November 2020, and Kianna Davis was not indicted until October 2023, almost three years later. This was not a case where police walked in and knew what they were looking at. They spent years trying to figure out what happened inside that apartment, and the defense's whole job has been to show the jury the seams in a case the State had to build slowly. That is the lens for everything in this Part. When we last left the jury, they had told the judge they were deadlocked on all seven counts, not close to agreement on a single one. She read them an Allen charge, the instruction that asks a stuck jury to keep working, and sent them back. This Part is what happened next, in the short block of court right before the lunch break, and it tells you a deadlocked jury is not a jury that has quit. Watch two things. First, as the panel files out to lunch, the foreperson hands the bailiff a fresh note, and the jury asks to go back and re-watch a specific video from the case, a sign they are still digging for the one piece that breaks their tie. Second, listen to the ruling the judge reads at the very end, because it is the closest anyone in that courtroom has come to the answer everyone is waiting for, and she is legally bound to keep it to herself. --- WATCH WITH JUSTICE 0:00:00 - The judge brings the deadlocked jury back in and releases them for lunch, reminding them one more time not to talk about the case or touch any of the news coverage while they are out. 0:02:11 - As the jury files out the door, the foreperson hands the bailiff a note. The judge opens it and reads it onto the record as notes eight and nine, the panel's newest requests. 0:02:42 - The jury wants to re-watch a video from the 18th. Watch the judge and the bailiff carefully pin down exactly which interview the panel is asking to see, because the note alone was not clear. 0:04:29 - It is the first interview from November 18, the body camera video entered as State's Exhibit 62. The judge has it queued to play for the jury at 1:15, with deliberations set to resume at 1:30. 0:04:54 - One other thing. The judge turns to a question the lawyers raised with her in chambers: whether they were entitled to know not just the count on each charge, but which way the jury was leaning. 0:05:27 - She grounds her answer in Georgia case law, Smith v. State and Sears, and lays out precisely what she shared with both sides and what she deliberately held back from them. 0:06:01 - She rules that revealing which way the count leans would be improper, so she seals it, and confirms the parties were given only the numbers and nothing about the direction. --- COMPLETE CASE COVERAGE justiceisaprocess.com SUBSCRIBE for daily trial coverage and hit the notification bell so you never miss testimony. JOIN to unlock the Case Notebook powered by NotebookLM, where you can chat with the evidence, ask questions about testimony, and go deeper than any comment section allows. CASE BACKGROUND REPORT: https://www.justiceisaprocess.com/ga-... Complete case overview: the charges, the timeline, the two-defendant question, and the legal analysis behind State of Georgia v. Kianna Davis. PLAYLISTS AND RESOURCES Website: https://www.justiceisaprocess.com/cov... Full Trial Live Broadcasts:    • Georgia v. Kianna Davis — Full Trial Live ...   No Breaks Edition:    • Georgia v. Kianna Davis — No Breaks Edition   Trial Analysis Podcast:    • Georgia v. Kianna Davis — Trial Case Story...   Key Moments and Testimony:    • Georgia v. Kianna Davis — Key Moments & Te...   Subscribe for Daily Coverage:    / @justiceisaprocess   FAIR USE AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE This content is produced under Fair Use (17 U.S.C. 107) for news reporting, criticism, and educational purposes. We provide transformative commentary on public court proceedings, advancing public understanding of the judicial process through timestamps, analysis, and educational context. #JusticeIsAProcess #WhoKilledKarter #KiannaDavis