The state will have to start over again in the jury trial of Walter B. Savoie, Jr., accused of stabbing a man in Sunset and subsequently telling a policeman he was going to kill him.

A six-person jury was picked last week but a mistrial was declared by Judge Ellis Daigle due to a previously unknown potential conflict involving Savoie’s attorney.

It turns out that Public Defender Frank Olivier had once represented Savoie’s alleged stabbing victim.

Though both the accused and the alleged victim said they had no issues with Olivier’s participating in this case, Daigle opted to start the process anew, with another attorney appointed for Savoie.

Savoie, no stranger to the halls of justice, was arrested in March 2010 for allegedly stabbing Stephen Lemelle in Sunset.

An initial attempted murder complaint was filed as a charge of aggravated second-degree battery by Dist. Atty. Earl Taylor’s staff.

Savoie, 29, was also accused of battery with a dangerous weapon and threatening a public official.

After being taken to the Sunset police station, he allegedly told an officer, “I’m going to kill you, white boy. I’m going to blow you away.”

When arrested, Savoie was out on bond from an arrest two years earlier, Feb. 14, 2008, when he was held on suspicion of disturbing the peace, illegal carrying of a weapon and aggravated assault on a police officer.

In that case, he allegedly was playing with a pellet gun in a grocery parking lot when an officer told him to put the gun in a car.

At that point, he allegedly made obscene remarks about the Sunset police and the officer told him to keep his comments to himself and put the gun up.

As the officer was going into the store, he said in the arrest affidavit, he looked back and saw Savoie pointing the gun at him before driving off.

Court records indicated that case has not progressed beyond the bond setting stage.

Savoie’s rap sheet dates to the 20th Century.

In December 1999 he was arrested on an attempted murder warrant.

In February 2000 a bill was filed by the DA charging Savoie with aggravated battery and aggravated assault.

In December of that year, he pleaded guilty to first degree robbery and aggravated battery, received five years at hard labor on each count, concurrent.

He received a first-offender pardon in April 2005.