A circuit jury could not reach a verdict Monday that would have allowed city prosecutors to ask for the state’s harshest sentence of life without parole for a 27-year-old man convicted of murder.

Joshua Williams was convicted of second-degree murder in last year’s death of Jamil Khan, 24, whose body was dismembered and disposed of in the trash.

The same jury that convicted Williams Sept. 1 of murdering Khan, his partner in an indoor marijuana-growing operation, returned to court and heard the prosecutor’s request last week to enhance the maximum prison terms for the murder and related convictions.

But the jury could not reach a unanimous agreement on whether the murder was so heinous that Williams should be sentenced to a life term without parole.

Williams now faces a prison term of life with parole for the murder when he is scheduled to return to Circuit Judge Karen Ahn’s courtroom for sentencing on Feb. 27.