Jury Hung in Father's Shooting of Son

By Jorge Casuso and Teresa Rochester

A jury Friday failed to agree whether a father who shot his son to death one year ago was guilty of manslaughter or second degree murder.

After a week of deliberations, ten of the jurors found that David Emile Hebert, 50, committed murder in the second degree when he shot his 17-year-old son Daoud Jabar inside their Santa Monica apartment. The other two jurors found that the elder Ebert was guilty of manslaughter.

Prosecutors immediately asked for another trail, and a pre-trail hearing has been set for August 15.

"There's a dead 17 year old here," said District Attorney Craig Karlan. "The 12 members of the jury found that at a minimum it's a manslaughter. We're not going to forget about it."

According to Karlan, the two dissenting jurors "felt that he (the father) was acting in an honest but unreasonable belief that he needed to kill or he would be killed.

"There were no injuries to the defendant," Karlan said. "Why on this day all of a sudden did he have to defend himself."

The July 29 killing - which was Santa Monica's only homicide last year - occurred in an apartment near 16th and Colorado Avenue shortly after 10 a.m. Police responding to a report of a gun being fired found the victim dead of a single gunshot to the chest.

Violence was no stranger in the Herbert household.

Before the last summer's fatal fight, David Herbert had been charged with misdemeanor child abuse, according to Santa Monica Municipal Court records.

Herbert was arrested on Dec. 23, 1993 on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury upon a child and battery - both misdemeanors, according to court records.

Court records indicate that Herbert was released on his own recognizance after his 1993 arrest and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A bench warrant was issued for his arrest on March 24, 1994 when he failed to show up for a court-ordered appearance on the charges. The warrant was recalled the same day for unspecified reasons.

Judge Laurence D. Rubin dismissed the entire case "in furtherance of justice" on April 4, 1994, but no details of that dismissal were included in the court file.

Daoud also had a violent past. When he was in grade school Daoud attacked a classmate, stabbing her in the head with a pencil.