After a judge declared a mistrial in May, the Solano County District Attorney decided to retry the child sex assault case against a 38-year-old Fairfield man but a trial-setting date set for Oct. 4 was paused and the matter will be heard in the coming months.

Djuan Donavyn Hall will return to Department 9 at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 7 for a readiness conference and to learn of his new trial date in Judge Carlos R. Gutierrez's courtroom in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

Court records show that jurors on May 19 split 6-6 on the most serious charges against Hall, several sex acts with a child 10 or younger, and 9-3 on at least one charge of a lewd act on a child. Gutierrez then declared a mistrial.

Hall, who is out of custody, according to Solano County Jail records, is represented by Deputy Public Defender Sara Johnson. Deputy District Attorney Kathleen McBride led the prosecution during the 19-day trial and it appears she will again at the pending one.

Earlier, Johnson filed to amend Hall's bail and a request to release him from jail, where he had been held for more than two years following Aug. 16, 2018, criminal complaint against him. She noted the alleged crimes occurred between February 2009 and September 2013. The witness, now in her late teens, testified that the sex acts began when she was 6.

But, Johnson added, the DA did not levy charges against Hall until nearly five years after the last alleged assault and a police investigation.

Also in her filing, Johnson noted the so-called "Humphrey Decision," a March finding this year in which the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously for pretrial rights for defendants, that the state's money bail system was unconstitutional and affirmed that detention should only be used if absolutely necessary.

She argued that Hall, a Vallejo native and the married father of two children, could only be held without bail "if the court concludes by clear and convincing evidence" that the witness' safety and the public's safety "cannot be reasonably assured or if his appearance in court cannot be reasonably assured if he is released."

She urged Gutierrez to consider the "Humphrey analysis" and release her client on his own recognizance or with an ankle monitor and reduce his $3 million bail to an amount Hall could actually afford.

It is unclear from court records if and when Gutierrez, who presided over the trial, granted Hall's release and reduced his bail. However, Solano County Jail records show that Hall is no longer in custody.

At the first trial, jurors apparently were not entirely convinced by McBride's closing arguments that began May 14, with her telling jurors that "the real question before you" is whether the victim is telling the truth, reminding them that the now-young woman vividly recalled on the witness stand the sexual incidents involving Hall, asserting that those details could not be contrived "based on the evidence."

The victim, she added, remembered "core details," among them "Who did it to me? What happened? And where was I?"

McBride told the 12 jurors (and four alternates), that the victim remembered the first, second, and last episode of sexual assaults Hall allegedly committed.

She also reminded jurors that sexual abuse experts believe that most allegations of sexual abuse are true and, under state jury instruction No. 1190, that conviction of a sexual assault crime may be based on the testimony of a single complaining witness.

Refuting McBride's contentions, Johnson began her argument by declaring Hall was innocent of the charges: four counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy of a child under 10, each considered a violent felony; and two counts of lewd acts with a minor under 14.

"Mr. Hall is innocent of every single one of these charges," asserted Johnson, then defined the expression "reasonable doubt" as an "abiding conviction to the truth of the charge."

If convicted at the end of a new trial of just one of the four counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy, Hall faces 25 years to life in state prison; and if found guilty of just one of the lewd acts, he faces three, six, or eight years in state prison.