The murder case against two California men accused of killing six people and injuring 13 others in a 2022 shooting in downtown Sacramento ended in a mistrial on Tuesday, after a Superior Court judge said that jurors could not reach a verdict.
But the men, Mtula Payton, 32, and Dandrae Martin, 31, were convicted of weapons charges, said Linda Parisi, Mr. Martin’s defense lawyer, for what the authorities have called the worst mass shooting in Sacramento’s history.
The men were each facing second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter charges, along with the weapons charges, after jurors hung on three counts of first-degree murder. Each was convicted of one count of unlawful possession of a gun as a felony charge.
A decision on whether to retry the defendants on the murder charges is expected to be announced in October, Ms. Parisi said. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office declined to say whether prosecutors would retry the case and also declined to comment further.
The mixed verdict capped a nearly three-month trial that brought witnesses as young as 12 years old to testify, but jurors still struggled to reach a consensus. The jury had deadlocked on the initial first-degree murder charges, and prosecutors withdrew those charges last week, Ms. Parisi said.
“We are really grateful at how hard the jury worked,” Ms. Parisi said in a phone interview. “They really took their job seriously.”
A third accused gunman, Smiley Martin, who was the brother of Mr. Martin, died in jail at age 29 in 2024, after accidentally overdosing on methadone, according to an autopsy report.
The shootout took place in the early morning hours as nightclub revelers were spilling onto 10th and K streets, just blocks from the State Capitol building. The people who were shot included some who were caught in what prosecutors called a gunfight between rival gangs.
Mr. Payton and Mr. Martin turned the lively downtown scene into a “war zone,” Megan Eixenberger, the principal criminal attorney for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, said in her closing arguments last month.
During the pandemic and its aftermath, gun violence spiked in the Sacramento region, with the capital city experiencing two other high-profile deadly shootings outside nightclubs in 2022.
The shooting generated discussion about revitalizing Sacramento’s downtown as businesses were shuttered for pandemic precautions. The city’s urban core had been a lively scene for California government workers, but that population had flocked home to work remotely, and their numbers have not returned to prepandemic levels.
The deadly shooting began at about 2 a.m. April 3, 2022, outside the Golden 1 Center, an arena that is home to the Sacramento Kings. Thousands had attended a concert featuring Tyler, the Creator, and many went to bars and eateries after the event.
The nightclubs had recently closed for the night when the authorities said two rival gang members fired more than 100 bullets in about a minute.
“These men brought their gang rivalry to a packed public space, entirely indifferent to hundreds of innocent bystanders,” Ms. Eixenberger added, “instantly transforming this vibrant nightlife into a scene of terror.”
Their defense attorneys said the defendants were acting in self-defense and had asked jurors to find them not guilty. Mr. Payton testified in his own defense, according to The Sacramento Bee.
The people who were fatally shot ranged in age from 21 to 57. They were: Melinda Davis, 57; Johntaya Alexander and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, both 21; Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, 32; Sergio Harris, 38; and Devazia Turner, 29.