A day and a half of deliberation ended in a hung jury Thursday afternoon in the civil case against Entergy for the 1997 electrocution of a contracted worker.

The court declared a mistrial at roughly 1 p.m. when the jury was still deadlocked 8-4.

A majority of nine jurors is required to render a verdict in a civil trial.

The jury deliberated until 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The case centered around Glennis M. Marsaw, 21, who died while working on a Mississippi Department of Transportation light pole near the bridge.

The pole got out of hand, tipped over and made contact with high-voltage Entergy cables.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Bryan Callaway, representing Marsaw’s family, argued Entergy was negligent when designing the lines and the cables posed a foreseeable danger.

Entergy attorney Jack Price said the workers failed to follow industry standard safety procedures and common sense practices.

The case will have to be brought to trial again or settled outside court, Callaway said Thursday.

“For my client, it’s kind of frustrating, but at the same time you’ve got to respect those people who make the decisions and stand by their convictions,” Callaway said. “It was well tried and a clean case. They did what they thought was right.”

This was the first time one of his trials ended in a hung jury mistrial, Callaway said. He wouldn’t say whether or not he was surprised by this week’s outcome.

As for the outcome of any future retrials, Callaway wouldn’t hazard a guess.

“The last thing I’ll ever do is to predict what a jury will do,” he said.

Neither Price nor Sanders could be reached for comment Thursday.