MAYVILLE – A Chautauqua County Jury is still deciding the fate of an Ellicott man arrested for killing his stepfather.

Thursday morning, Judge David Foley gave the instructions to the jury regarding the trial of Tucker Richard, who was arrested following the shooting death of Scott Blake on Jan. 6, 2023.

When the trial began Oct. 21, Richard, 20, was charged with second-degree murder. During Foley’s instructions he said that the jury could consider the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.

He said if the jury finds Richard guilty of second-degree murder, they cannot consider the criminal negligent homicide charge. If they find Richard not guilty of second-degree murder, he said they must then consider negligent homicide.

Foley read the legal definitions of both second-degree murder and criminally negligent homicide. He also discussed the legal requirements regarding self defense, something the defense has claimed in the trial.

Jury instructions took about an hour, before the members began privately discussing the facts of the case.

About 90 minutes after the jury went into deliberations, there were two requests made by the 12-member group. One request was for the testimony of Ellicott Police Sgt. Kevin Pierce’s testimony and the other one was for the definition and application of the term “initial aggressor,” which was part of the instructions given to the jury by Foley.

The stenographer read back Pierce’s testimony, which took nearly two and a half hours.

After that, Foley read back the section of his instructions for “initial aggressor.”

Following those two requests, the jury went back into deliberations for another 30 minutes before they requested the judge again go over the definition and application of the term “initial aggressor.” Foley again read the section and then afterward dismissed the jurors as it was the close of business at that point.

Deliberations will resume Friday morning.

Thursday marked the 11th day of Richard’s trial. The prosecution had 15 people testify. The defense had one person testify. Richard did not take the stand.

Before Blake’s death, the last reported homicide within the town of Ellicott occurred May 30, 2008, when 31-year-old Quincy Turner was shot and killed on Girts Road near the Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport.

Richard’s case is the first murder trial during Schmidt’s tenure as district attorney after taking office in January, 2021. There have been other murder cases that were pleaded out, as well as two manslaughter cases that were brought to trial.