Court resumed bright and early Saturday morning, beginning with the dismissal of four jurors who had claimed hardship in round one. Judge Perry was not pleased at all with the parties who objected to these jurors' dismissal in the first place. Because defense has insisted on mics being off at the counsel tables, I couldn't hear who spoke up when the judge asked who originally objected to dismissals. From what I could glean from the judge's comments, though, it appears the defense may have been responsible for keeping all these jurors in play.
At least the court was able to get these hardship jurors out of the way first thing. Reasons for excusing them: can't afford to board pets, employment, illness, other factors. What did all these jurors have in common? ALL said they'd formed an opinion of guilt already. Have jurors figured out that is the golden ticket for getting out of serving?
Now onto Juror #1407, a young man studying to be a mechanic. He is an "8 or 9" for death penalty if circumstances warranted it. He is atheist, so no issues with religious beliefs and the DP. He does not care for watching/reading news and knows very little about this case. He prefers to ride his bike when not in school.
Juror was arrested several years ago for weed in TN (I presume when he was a teen). He failed to list this on his questionnaire because he said it wasn't on his record. He, like many others, did not understand Finnell's questioning about whether he would consider mitigating factors. She asks in such a way that the juror interprets as, "Do you think these things ought to be considered." If she would say, "If the judge instructs you that <age, whatever> can be considered as a mitigating factor, would you consider it," they might understand more clearly.
This young man's mom is married to a man in prison. She knew him before juror was born and, after breaking with his father, some years later married this man during his imprisonment. He is not happy that his mom is married to an inmate.
Despite the fact that juror is a young male, very logical, doesn't watch news, I predicted defense wouldn't want him because of his views on criminals (mother's husband), his interest in watching Law & Order, and his vote of 8-9 on scale of 1-10 for DP. Then the juror said that he didn't like the media "at all," that they were mostly liars and news programs were really just TV shows. So I changed my opinion and thought the defense might want him after all.
But my original take was right. The state did not challenge the juror, but the defense challenged him for cause. First, Baez argued that juror initially said he wouldn't consider age as a mitigating factor; however, the judge reminded him that it is because of the way the question is asked that jurors are answering in the negative on whether they'd consider factors as "mitigating." (My take is the defense asks it that way so that it gives them an out to claim "cause" if they want the juror gone). Judge Perry told Baez they need to instruct on the law first, then ask the question.
Baez also challenged on juror's having omitted the weed bust, but the judge must have found the young man's explanation for not listing it reasonable and honest since he denied the challenge on cause. Defense did not use a peremptory, so that makes Juror #1407 the 9th juror retained for trial.
Next up was Juror #1392. He seemed to be answering in the expected and appropriate way. First red flag: Upon questioning from state atty George, juror admitted it might be a financial hardship if he were to serve. He does occasional odd jobs and has bills to pay, including a lot of credit card debt. (Why didn't he stress financial hardship in the first round?) After the judge told him he'd receive $210 per week for serving, the juror said it should be "sufficient." George was trying his best with the financial hardship issue to create a "for cause" challenge to have the juror excused.
At this point, I thought this might go the way of the femal African American juror from before, where the state exercised a peremptory challenge and the defense responded with a Batson challenge (basically accusing opposing counsel of trying to dismiss a juror based on race).
Second red flag: Juror said he'd caught parts of Nancy Grace this past week. He said it was "foolishness," going on about how the defendant constantly touched her hair and fidgeted with her pen. Obviously, he watched long enough to see that much when he wasn't supposed to watch at all. In addition, he said he'd also seen bits on a local news channel before he could change the station. The juror said he thought this was on Monday, but Grace has harped on it all week, so it could have been any night. Baez tried to rehabilitate him on this point by asking if he thought he'd been doing as he was instructed to do.
Third red flag and coup de grace for this man's ever serving on the jury in this case: Not only did he post on FB to his 500 friends that he was serving, he actually posted the entirety of his juror instructions on his FB page and posted messages on Wednesday such as "Book coming soon LOL" and "Already got the title, cover and all."
At this point, the judge asked the juror to step out. The state was spared having to challenge the juror for cause or use a peremptory. Even the defense didn't object to Judge Perry's excusing the juror for cause.
Next was Juror #1394, a woman whose son tragically died in a car crash. After looking like it might work during the first bit of questioning, she said that the loss of a child is the worst thing imaginable in the world. She didn't think she'd be able to overcome Anthony's failure to report her daughter missing, lack of cooperation with LE and her own suffering over the loss of a child in order to be fair and impartial. She was excused.
In addition, Juror #1361 was excused for financial hardship.
Since the court got through these jurors more quickly than expected, they took their lunch break early. Before leaving, though, Judge Perry said that while he'd been going along with the attorneys' scheduling, he wanted them to be aware that they were all gonna be on the "Perry Plan" starting next week.
Judge Perry also said that once they hit the "magic number" of 15 jurors, he is going to swear them in. He said it would be a race for the attorneys to exercise backstrikes before he swears the jurors, as he intends to do it quickly.
So, out of eight jurors so far today, 6 were excused for cause (hardship issues of various sorts), 1 was excused for cause for not following the court's instructions, and 1 single juror was retained (over objection of the defense, so they may exercise a backstrike on that one).
As of the lunch recess, there are now 9 jurors retained for trial. Judge Perry wants 6 more before he starts swearing them in. Juror questioning will resume (to quote Judge Perry) "at precisely 12:30."
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