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A Limestone County Circuit Court judge on Monday declared a mistrial in the capital murder trial of a teenager accused of killing five of his family members.
Judge Chad Wise ruled that the prosecution had failed to disclose cell phone information that would have aided Mason Wayne Sisk and his defense team in proving his defense. Sisk was 14 when he killed his father, step-mother and three younger siblings.
The defense attorneys were provided with the records last week and stated in court filings that they simply couldn’t review them, pull exculpatory evidence from the large file and incorporate it into an adequate defense while the trial was in progress. Ultimately, and after initially denying a mistrial motion last week, Wise agreed.
“I just don’t think there’s anything more than this I could do that would be fair,” Wise said, according to WHNT-19, as he apologized to the jury for the mistrial ending the case without a verdict.
WHNT reported that Sisk’s attorneys said they expected their client to be retried sometime in early 2023.
The mistrial ended a trial that most considered a fairly open-and-shut case. Just after the shooting, law enforcement officials said Sisk admitted that he fatally shot his family in order to prevent his siblings from growing up in a house where his parents argued.
Sisk is not eligible for the death penalty because he was just 14 at the time of the shootings.
