FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A burglary defendant who won his freedom because of a jury's mistake lost his life a few hours later when he was stabbed to death in a fight. 
 
 In this 2007 photo released by the Fresno County Superior Court shows Judge W. Kent Hamlin. Police in Central California say a man who was released from jail after a jury mistakenly signed a not-guilty... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this June 14, 2012 photo shows Fresno County Superior Court Judge W. Kent Hamlin in his courtroom. Police in Central California say a man who was released from jail after a jury mistakenly signed a... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this undated photo released by the Fresno Police Dept. shows Bobby Lee Pearson. Pearson, a defendant in a Central California burglary case, walked out of a courtroom a free man after a jury mistakenly... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police rope off the scene where burglary defendant Bobby Lee Pearson was stabbed to death after walking out of a courtroom following a jury's mistake Thursday, June 12, 2014 in Fresno, Calif. Pearson... (Associated Press) 
 
 The jury in the trial of Bobby Lee Pearson, 37, mistakenly signed a not-guilty form Wednesday, and the flabbergasted judge said he had no choice but to order him to be released from jail because the verdict had already been put on the record. 
 
 It was too late when the judge learned that the jury was unable to reach a verdict, stalling on an 8-4 vote in favor of guilt. Prosecutors might have had an opportunity to retry Pearson, but by then changing the verdict form would have exposed Pearson to double jeopardy. 
 
 "I can't believe it," said Superior Court Judge W. Kent Hamlin after setting Pearson free, according to The Fresno Bee. 
 
 After being released from jail, Pearson went home to get some clothing and belongings when Fresno police Sgt. James Rios said Pearson apparently got into a fight with his sister's boyfriend. 
 
 The two had a long history of problems, said Rios, adding that the boyfriend stabbed and killed Pearson, who was found dead at the scene. The boyfriend's name has not been released. 
 
 William Terrence, who prosecuted the case, told The Associated Press that despite the bizarre chain of events that led to Pearson's release, the man he tried sending to prison didn't deserve to die that way. 
 
 "There's not a death penalty on a burglary," Terrence said. "I'm not sitting here thinking he got what he deserved." 
 
 Terrence said he is still trying to understand the jury's confusion. He said he explained the verdict forms in closing arguments as he has done many times, and so did the judge. 
 
 "Apparently, the message wasn't quite received," Terrence said. 
 
 In the case of a deadlock, jurors should have sent a note to the judge. 
 
 Pearson and two co-defendants were accused of burglarizing an apartment last year and stealing a video system and a gun. The homeowner allegedly caught the intruders and wrestled with one of them. 
 
 Jurors returned a guilty verdict against Pearson's co-defendant, Terrel Minnieweather and the mistaken not-guilty verdict against Pearson before lunch Wednesday. 
 
 Terrence said Hamlin polled each juror individually to verify Minnieweather's guilty verdict. Turning to Pearson's case, the judge asked the jurors as a group if that was its not-guilty verdict in Pearson's case. 
 
 "No one stood up and said, 'Hey, wait a minute. That's not my verdict,'" Terrence said. "They nodded along." 
 
 Terrence said that it wasn't a mistake to poll the jury as a group. The evidence against Pearson wasn't as strong, and Terrence said he respected the jury's apparent not-guilty decision. 
 
 The jurors were then asked to return after lunch for a potential second phase of the trial. The confusion over the verdict came to light during lunch, when one juror told court staff that he had voted to find Pearson guilty. 
 
 Jurors said they were confused by the forms, one of which was for a guilty verdict and the other for a not guilty verdict. One juror said there was no form they could sign that indicated the jury was deadlocked. 
 
 "It is bizarre," said Eugene Hyman, who retired from the Santa Clara County Superior Court after serving for 20 years on the bench. "But I can't find fault with anyone." 
 
 Hyman, who had no involvement in Pearson's case, said during trials, he would always ask each juror whether the verdict read by the clerk was indeed their verdict. He said there's nothing wrong with polling jurors en masse. 
 
 Hyman said the Fresno judge had no choice to acquit Pearson if Hamlin ordered the not guilty verdict "recorded" immediately after the jurors nodded in agreement with the verdict. 
 
 Judges are required to poll jurors after every verdict is read in criminal cases, Hyman said, but that requirement can be waived by lawyers. ||||| Former coworkers told Action News the suspected killer, Willie Gray worked at the Big Fresno Fair as a landscaper. They remember him as a hard worker. "I couldn't believe it. It was just pure shock. I just would have never believed it," said Stacy Rianda.ABC30 legal analyst, Tony Capozzi believes there's a strong case Gray acted to protect himself. "Unless someone is watching this. Unless there are some witnesses to say otherwise he may have a really good defense as self-defense," said Capozzi.But he added his attorney will have a tough time at trial. "The fact that he left the scene is the indication of consciousness of guilt. You think you did something wrong so you run away. That's allowed to come into evidence in a trial."The bizarre chain of events started on Wednesday when a jury found 37-year-old Bobby Pearson not guilty in a burglary case . It was later found that eight jurors actually believed Pearson was guilty of the burglary, but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the law explained to them, they entered a not guilty verdict and even confirmed it when the judge polled them.It turns out, the jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision when it came to Pearson, but two-thirds of them thought he was guilty. Judge Kent Hamlin had read instructions to them, including one saying that if they couldn't reach a unanimous decision, they should send the judge a note and not sign any verdict forms."That instruction, I don't know if it was overlooked or misunderstood, but it had been explained," Linden Lindahl, defense attorney for Terrel Minnieweather -- the other defendant in the burglary trial.According to jail records, Bobby Pearson was released from jail just before midnight on Wednesday night. About an hour later, just before 1 a.m. on Thursday morning, Fresno Police found him laying in the road in the area of Dayton and West in Central Fresno. He was taken to Community Regional Medical Center where he died from his wounds shortly after arriving.During the investigation, police said Pearson went to his mother's house after leaving the jail and got into a fight with his sister's boyfriend Willie Gray. Police said Gray and Pearson had longstanding personal issues. They said the fight ended with Pearson laying in the road with two wounds -- one they said, looked like a knife wound, the other may be a gunshot wound. Witnesses also reported a loud pop. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday. Police caught the suspect, Willie Gray, on the run about a mile away from the murder scene at an apartment complex. Officers served a search warrant there looking for evidence and they also towed a minivan, which they believe was the getaway vehicle. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said investigators seized a gun at the home where Gray was arrested.Dyer said Gray is being treated for injuries at Community Regional Medical Center, and will face murder charges once he is booked into the Fresno County Jail.Police are still investigating the incident.----- ||||| Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Cambridge high school graduate who fashioned himself into an Islamic warrior against America, was convicted Wednesday in a sweeping verdict that held him responsible for the terrorist attacks that killed three people and injured more than 260 nearly two years ago at the Boston Marathon finish line. 
 
 Tsarnaev, now 21, showed no emotion as the court clerk took more than 20 minutes to read the guilty verdict on each of the 30 charges he faced. The charges included the fatal shooting of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, the carjacking and robbery of a businessman, and a firefight with police 
 
 in Watertown that left an 
 
 MBTA police officer gravely injured. 
 
 The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for just over 11 hours before reaching its verdict. 
 
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 The guilty findings were largely expected after Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted his complicity in the bombings in opening statements, but it was a highly charged moment for the bombing’s survivors and for a city shaken by the events of April 15, 2013. 
 
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 Before the jury entered, a court officer had warned those in the courtroom to contain their emotions. 
 
 So the courtroom went silent as the verdicts were read, save for the shuffling of paper. Tsarnaev fidgeted at times, folding his hands in front of him, crossing his arms, touching his face. Jurors were stonefaced as the clerk read their verdict. 
 
 The same jury that convicted Tsarnaev will now consider in a separate phase of the trial whether he should be sentenced to death. The jury could begin hearing that case as soon as Monday. 
 
 By the time the judge excused the jury Wednesday, the lanky defendant darted away from the defense table faster than usual, seemingly eager to leave the courtroom where he had just been convicted of heinous crimes that could lead the jury to sentence him to death. 
 
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 Wednesday’s verdict was welcomed by some of the bombing survivors, many of whom have made their way to the courthousethroughout the trial, some on prosthetic legs. The families of Tsarnaev’s victims also attended. 
 
 “We are thankful that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be held accountable for the evil that he brought to so many families,” said a statement from the family of Collier. “The strength and bond that everyone has shown during these last two years proves that if these terrorists thought they would somehow strike fear in the hearts of people, they monumentally failed,” the statement said. 
 
 Hundreds of people were injured in the Marathon blasts, including 17 who lost limbs. 
 
 The three who were killed were Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, who grew up in Medford and was a well-known restaurant and event caterer; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Martin Richard, an 8-year-old Dorchester boy whose family made the Marathon an annual family outing. 
 
 William Richard, Martin’s father, gave emotional testimony during the trial, describing how he made the difficult decision to help his gravely injured daughter while his wife, Denise, tended to their dying son. Both parents sat in the second row of the courtroom Wednesday as the verdict was read. William Richard later put his hand on the shoulder of one of the prosecutors in a quiet sign of thanks. 
 
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 Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, who ran the 2013 Marathon and then returned to help direct the response, was sitting in the second row roughly 15 feet behind Tsarnaev when the verdicts were read. 
 
 “I couldn’t help but think about all the evil he has committed, all the lives he destroyed forever, and how someone could be so destructive,” Evans later said in an interview. 
 
 He said he hoped the verdicts would allow Tsarnaev’s victims and the survivors of the attacks to get “some sense of satisfaction, some sense of closure coming from knowing the person that committed such a malicious act was held accountable.” 
 
 Seven hours into deliberations, the jury sent the judge two notes. They wanted to know the definition of aiding and abetting, which the judge explained is a defendant’s action to intentionally help another person commit a criminal offense. 
 
 The jurors also asked about the criminal conspiracy — wanting to know how long the charged conspiracy lasted. The judge told them they would have to decide. 
 
 Ultimately, they found him guilty of each count, and each question that cited the murders and injuries of the victims — enhancements that allow for the death penalty. 
 
 At the start of the trial the defense acknowledged their client’s guilt but — in an effort to save his life — used the trial to place the blame on Tsarnaev’s older brother and accomplice, Tamerlan, who they say was the mastermind of the attacks. Their client, they argued, was emotionally vulnerable and lured into this terrorist scheme — and thus he should be spared the death penalty, the ultimate punishment. Defense lawyers are expected to expand on that argument in the second phase of the trial. 
 
 Throughout the trial, which included 95 witnesses over 16 days of testimony, prosecutors sought to portray the brothers as equal partners who marched down Boylston Street and into a crowd of people just before 3 p.m. on Marathon day. Tamerlan Tsarnaev stopped in front of Marathon Sports, where he set off the bomb that killed Campell. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stopped outside the Forum restaurant, where he placed a bomb behind where the Richard family was watching the race. Lu was walking by when it exploded. 
 
 Then, authorities say, the brothers just left. 
 
 Less than a half hour later, Tsarnaev bought milk at a Whole Foods in Cambridge. The next day he exercised at a gym at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where he was a student. 
 
 After the Marathon bombings, he tweeted, “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city. Stay safe, people.” He later wrote, “I’m a stress-free kind of guy.” 
 
 The case took a significant turn three days after the bombings, when the FBI released a photo of the brothers in an attempt to identify them. That is when they shot and killed Collier and tried to steal his gun, then carjacked a young entrepreneur driving a Mercedes. 
 
 Prosecutors say the brothers intended to drive to New York City, armed with more bombs to carry out more attacks. 
 
 That plot ended when officials tracked the stolen Mercedes to Watertown, and a firefight ensued. 
 
 The brothers threw four pipe bombs at responding officers — only two of those bombs exploded — and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev threw a pressure cooker bomb that shook the neighborhood. Tamerlan Tsarnaev shot at officers. When the gun jammed, he ran at officers and they subdued him. 
 
 That is when, according to testimony in the trial, his younger brother drove at the officers and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, dragging him roughly 30 feet. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found roughly 17 hours later, hiding in a parked boat a few blocks away. 
 
 Defense attorney Judy Clarke asked jurors in her closing arguments Monday to keep an open mind during the sentencing phase of the trial, when she will be allowed to elaborate on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s influence on a vulnerable teenager, and to be open “to what more there is to learn, and to what more there is to understand.” 
 
 During the next phase, which is also expected to last about a month, prosecutors are expected to call victims who could testify about how their lives have been irrevocably changed, to show that Tsarnaev’s crimes were so heinous he deserves the death penalty. 
 
 US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz looked ahead after the verdicts were read. 
 
 “As we enter this next [sentencing] phase,” she said in a statement, “we are focused on the work that remains to be done.” 
 
 . 
 
 Bombing survivor speak outside courthouse 
 
 John R. Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Milton J. Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@ 
 
 globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia
– Bobby Lee Pearson got what was probably the luckiest break of his life on Wednesday when a jury mistakenly set him free after a burglary trial. It soon turned into the unluckiest break of his life: An hour into his accidental freedom, he got fatally attacked, reports ABC30 in Fresno. The strange chain of events began when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous verdict about Pearson. Eight thought he was guilty and four didn't, and at that point—as the judge had explained to them—they should have sent a note saying they were deadlocked. Instead, they signed a not-guilty form. Judge W. Kent Hamlin learned of the mistake only after the verdict had been read into the public record and had to release the career criminal, reports the Fresno Bee. Otherwise, Hamlin would have declared a mistrial and ordered Pearson held for a second trial. "I can't believe it," he said in court. "I can't change it because double jeopardy has already attached. This has never happened to me in more than 100 jury trials that I have done." Upon being released at 11:57pm Wednesday, Pearson went to his mother's house to collect some belongings and got into a fight with his sister's boyfriend, say police. He was stabbed, with a steak knife found next to his body, and was pronounced dead around 1:25am. "There's not a death penalty on a burglary," the prosecutor in Pearson's case tells AP. "I'm not sitting here thinking he got what he deserved." (Click for another unusual courtroom story.)