A panel of 12 jurors was on Friday unable to convict a 16-year-old schoolgirl charged with the stabbing death of an acquaintance at a dance in rural St Andrew last year.

After deliberating for over an hour, the jurors were unable to reach a verdict, setting the stage for a retrial. An April return date was set following the hung jury in the Home Circuit Court.

Evidence was led in the trial that on January 20, 2007 the accused and Andrew Lee, 17, were involved in an altercation around 10:00 pm at a dance in the Dallas community, when the girl left and returned with a knife, which she used to stab Lee to the throat. Lee died several days later at the hospital.

The defence, however, countered that the girl was defending herself when she stabbed Lee and that no time during the altercation did she leave the scene.

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