A new jury trial for the former LaSalle police officer who fatally shot a man outside a Family Dollar in May 2023 is scheduled for March 2025 after a mistrial was declared in his case late last week.

Erik Hernandez, 35, appeared in Weld District Court Thursday before Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow for the first time since the mistrial was declared. Kopcow set a 10-day retrial to begin on March 17.

Hernandez still faces a second-degree murder charge in the May 3, 2023, slaying of Juston Reffel, 38, in LaSalle.

While following up on a suspicious vehicle complaint, Hernandez — who was in his third day on the job as a LaSalle police officer — and another officer encountered a vehicle that had been backed into a parking spot near store. The two officers parked their patrol vehicle to prevent the vehicle from leaving the lot and went in to look for the owner.

While inside, the two spotted Reffel, who ran to the suspect vehicle when he saw police. The two officers followed him outside as he stormed toward the lot car.

Reffel started the vehicle as officers yelled at him to get out. Reffel put the car in reverse to clear space between his vehicle and the patrol car.

As Reffel put the car in gear and began to speed away, Hernandez fired four shots into the driver’s door, striking Reffel in the upper torso and killing him almost instantly.

The Critical Incident Response Team investigated the shooting, which was then presented to the Weld County Grand Jury. A grand jury indicted Hernandez on one count of second-degree murder in June 2023. He pleaded not guilty in early February.

Hernandez was arraigned on October 21. After an eight-day trial and two days of jury deliberation, a mistrial was declared on Nov. 1 due to the jury’s inability to reach a unanimous decision, records show.

Defense attorney Havilah Lilly said on “Good Morning NoCo” — a morning show on Greeley radio station KFKA — Thursday morning that the jury was split 6-5, but did not say which way. She said the jury would have been split 6-6, but one juror was removed for misconduct after going home and researching the case — something jurors are explicitly told several times not to do.

After the mistrial, Hernandez’s defense moved to withdraw his not guilty plea, but prosecutors objected and Kopcow did not accept the withdrawal.

In Thursday’s status conference, the defense again tried to withdraw the plea, and the defense objected, so the focus shifted to finding a new trial date.

With a busy trial for Kopcow next spring, both sides agreed to a March 17 start date, despite reluctance from Lilly, which has already faced difficulty finding new experts to testify in a the second process.

When Kopcow asked about the status of the two experts who testified for the defense in the first trial, Lilly called it “another complicated mess.”

Despite a request for a later trial date, Kopcow remained adamant about the March trial, saying, “I don’t see why you couldn’t get experts and be ready by March. In four months.”

Kopcow set a Jan. 7 deadline for both sides to file for new experts. The prosecution said it also plans to call new experts at the rescheduled trial.

A preliminary hearing is set for March 5.