Jury deliberations to resume Thursday in Michael White trial

FOX 29's Bruce Gordon has the latest on the Michael White trial. White is accused of stabbing Sean Schellenger near Rittenhouse Square in July of 2018.

PHILADELPHIA - Jurors resume deliberations Thursday in the case of a bicycle deliveryman charged in the stabbing death of a real estate developer during a traffic confrontation in Center City in July 2018.

Closing arguments were delivered Wednesday in the voluntary manslaughter trial of 22-year-old Michael White in the July 2018 confrontation with 37-year-old Sean Schellenger near Rittenhouse Square.

In closing arguments, Michael White’s legal team called the fatal stabbing an act of self-defense. They claimed evidence showed Sean Schellenger drunk and drug-impaired had threatened to “beat the black off” White at the scene of a traffic dispute, then tackled White after White pulled a knife, retreated and told him to back away.

“When people are attacked, they do what they need to do to make sure they are not harmed," defense attorney Keir Bradford-Gray said.

Prosecutors told jurors this was a deliberate killing that White injected himself into a minor traffic dispute that night and escalated the conflict by pulling a knife and threatening Schellenger.

Assistant District Attorney Sherrell Dandy said Schellenger acted in self-defense, trying to disarm the knife-wielding White, who stabbed him in the back as the pair tumbled to the street.

“You cannot bring a knife to a fistfight. He needs to be held accountable," Dandy said.

The jury is expected back Thursday morning.

The district attorney dropped a third-degree murder charge before trial, leaving only voluntary manslaughter and weapons counts, a decision strongly criticized by Schellenger's mother.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.