rhornsby
Board Certified Criminal Trial Lawyer
Here is how jury selection works. The jurors first fill out questionnaires that the lawyers get to review, then the judge asks preliminary questions, the state asks their questions, and then the defense asks questions.Snipped for space. BBM
Maybe I'm a bit slow, but when you say that Ms.Lyon's comments will never see the light of the courtroom, are you excluding jury selection? You seem to be saying two different things. Do you mean her comments will never make it into evidence at trial, but most certainly will be brought up in jury selection? Makes no sense to me.
Ms.Lyon to potential juror: "Have you ever heard me say that women prosecutors wear strap-ons and that I will do anything to win and jurors are stupid and that by definition, if you become a member of a death-qualified jury you are a killer?"
potential juror: "no".
Ms.Lyon: "your honor we'd like to have this person excluded on the basis that he/she has heard me say inflammatory things about myself and is thus unable to render an honest verdict based on the afacts of this case."
Huh? I seriously don't get it.
A major topic is going to be who heard pretrial publicity. So while Potential Juror 1 may not have heard the tapes, Potential Juror 2 may have and will then say "well I heard she said this about jurors, and I think she is a witch." Suddenly PJ1, who had no position agrees with PJ2 and asserts his agreement when asked if anyone else agrees with PJ2.
Now both jurors would be stricken for cause, as they would have exhibited a bias against the defense team.
Now once this will likely become a heated topic, and suddenly PJ5, PJ7, PJ14, etc all express the same bias - and they all too are excluded.
Now the State is left with PJ3, PJ4, PJ6, PJ9, PJ9, etc who all said they understood the context of what was said and why it was said and they stay in the jury pool because they have not expressed a bias against the defense, nor by saying they understand the context of the statements are the expressing a sympathy for the defense that the State could use to strike them for cause.
So basically, once this questioning is done. All of the shoot now, sort 'em out later people are off the jury and you are left with more level headed people.
Now, once the jury is seated with a pro-defense jury, the statements will never be discussed again.
Also, the entire audio of her speech would not be played for any reason, even during jury selection. Rather, the only exposure during jury selection would be what people remember hearing.