I am back in court today for the 2nd day of Letecia Stauch’s jury trial, where attorneys will continue to work to find the 16 people who will serve on the jury for the trial, which is expected to last 6-8 weeks.
The goal over the next two weeks is to find 110 people who could potentially serve on the jury, and on April 3 attorneys will pick the 16-person jury from that 110 person group. Yesterday, the first 20 potential jurors were selected.
Probably another 10-15 before we get started, but I’ll aim to tweet updates once we get going.
Issues again with most of the potential jurors stating the length of the trial would be a significant problem in serving on the jury. On Tuesday 39 of the 75 called in for jury duty indicated the length of the trial would be a serious issue.
A handful more said that prior experiences with child abuse would make them wary of serving on the jury for this specific case.
On Monday, 48 of the 75 indicated the length of trial would be an issue.
23 people were dismissed after the morning break by Judge Werner. Much less than yesterday when more than half the potential jurors were dismissed after the morning break.
Josh Tolini, Stauch's defense attorney, just stated their psychologist Dr. Dorothy Lewis found Stauch to be insane at the time of the murder. The findings of Dr. Lewis' report have been unclear until today, and weren't filed to the court at all until last week.
A lot of people today, like yesterday, stating there is no way they could be unbiased if selected to be a part of this jury due to what they've already seen in the media/on social media. "My mind is made up, and I am positive I can’t overcome my bias,” one person said.
Something like 15ish people said there is no chance they could give Stauch the presumption of innocence.
Interesting difference between the 75 people called in today and yesterday. Yesterday, the majority of people who stated they had some bias eventually said they'd be willing to hear out the evidence and try to be unbiased.
Today, most are indicating there is no chance they could do that. I've heard the sentence "my mind is made up" at least 10 times already today. Not sure I heard it more than once or twice yesterday.
20 more people were dismissed by Werner prior to the lunch break, only 32 potential jurors are left for the afternoon portion of jury selection. Looks like everyone who said they couldn't be unbiased was dismissed.
gazette.com
