WOODLAND — For the second time, a Yolo Superior Court judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a former UC Davis student accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student.
After roughly 2½ days of deliberations, the eight-man, four-woman jury on Monday declared itself deadlocked on charges that 26-year-old Lang Her raped an intoxicated, unconscious woman back in 2012.
Jurors were split 10-2 in favor of a conviction and said nothing could be done to help them reach a unanimous verdict, prompting Judge Paul Richardson to declare the mistrial.
He did the same back in May 2015, when another jury hung 8-4 in favor of acquittal. Prosecutors now must decide prior to a March 28 court hearing whether to try the case a third time.
“We will thoughtfully consider our options and include the victim in these discussions,” said Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven, who prosecuted the two-week trial.
Her’s defense attorney, Christopher Carlos, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The charges stemmed from an incident that occurred at Her’s off-campus apartment on the morning of July 10, 2012, following a party at which the alleged victim, identified as Y.X., became heavily intoxicated after a round of drinking games.
Her and another friend took the woman upstairs to sleep, and she testified waking up at about 3 a.m. to “a very sharp pain. … Somebody was having sex with me without my consent.”
Y.X. identified Her as the assailant and disclosed the incident to fellow students in a summer class at UCD, and later to police.
“She trusted him, and he took something away from her that he had no right to take away from her,” Raven told the jury in his closing argument last week.
Her initially denied any contact with the woman. After his DNA was recovered from a pantyliner and a vaginal swab, however, Her described a consensual encounter in which the pair “made out” while unclothed but did not have sex, blaming the genetic material on pre-ejaculate.
Carlos argued that Y.X. cried rape as part of a performance assignment at UCD, and that the attention she received prompted her to continue to lie.
“She couldn’t go back. She was stuck in the story,” he said in his closing remarks. “False allegations happen.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene