Crime and Courts

UPDATE: Mistrial declared in Gallatin Gateway bar stabbing case

Posted: Mar 8, 2013 4:16 PM by KBZK Newsroom

Late Friday afternoon, Judge John Brown declared a mistrial in the case after jurors said they could not reach a verdict. Jurors spent nearly two days trying to come up with a verdict before calling it quits.
Thursday, after deliberating for 8 ½ hours, the Gallatin County jury sent the judge a note, saying it was "hopelessly deadlocked" and could not reach a verdict in the trial of a man accused of stabbing another man outside a Gallatin Gateway bar.
Judge John Brown then sent a note to the jury, asking whether it would assist the jury to reach a verdict if they were excused for the night and asked to come back tomorrow. The jury returned a note, saying that, yes, it would return in the morning to continue deliberations.
The jury began deliberations at 1 p.m. Thursday. At 9:30 p.m. the came back saying they were deadlocked. The trial continued into its fifth day on Friday.
The jury was asked to determine whether Mark Logan was guilty of aggravated assault, and if so, whether a weapon was used.
While prosecutors maintain that Logan is guilty of the crime, which was witnessed by numerous people, including several members of a wedding party; the defense claims these witnesses have provided varying tales of the events of that night.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011, Gallatin County sheriff's deputies responded a fight outside Stacey's Bar.
According to court documents, when officials interviewed the victim's wife she told them that she and her husband went to the bar after a wedding at Gallatin Gateway Inn. She said she and her friends were outside smoking when a man came up and threw her friend into a parked car. The woman said her husband stepped in and told the man not to touch the woman; that's when it "turned into chaos." She was taken into the bar and, when someone brought her husband inside, they said he had been stabbed, she said.
The victim was stabbed six times. One of the stab wounds was to the lining of his lung, court documents state. He also reportedly suffered an injury to his left ear when an earring was ripped out.
Police later linked Logan to the stabbing and asked for the public's helping locating him. Logan was later found, 16 days later, in White Sulphur Springs.