Defence lawyer dies after collapsing during closing argument in murder trial

A defence lawyer collapsed as she was delivering her closing argument at a murder trial and later died.

Jean Darby was defending her client Alfonso Jarman who is accused of killing a 77-year-old retired prison officer when she lost consciousness and collapsed in Alabama's, Lauderdale County Court.

The 64-year-old subsequently passed away at a nearby hospital over the weekend.

Before she collasped, The WHNT news channel reported that Ms Darby had been telling the jury that the trial must have been exhausting for them, as it had been for her.

A police officer attempted to resucitate her after she fell.

Although the official cause of death remains unknown, doctors suspect she may have suffered a brain aneurysm or a stroke, according to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.

Paying tribute to her, Mike Jones, an Alabama judge and former state prosecutor said: "She worked extraordinarily hard to be sure anybody she represented had all the rights the law allows."

Judge Gil Self decided to proceed with the trial of Alfonso Jarmon and appointed two new lawyers to represent the accused.

Asking the jury if it could “set aside sympathy and only apply the law to the facts of the case”, the jurors indicated they could and deliberations were restarted.

They found Jarmon guilty of shooting dead his neighbour Charles Hugh Perkins, in April 2016.

The court was told three eyewitnesses saw the murder while forensic experts testified that a gun was found in a plastic bag under his mattress.

Jarmon is set to be sentenced in December.