Previous post on this case can be found HERE.
Monday, January 25, 2016
In Los Angeles County, it is a long process to select a jury for a high-profile, death penalty case.
Today starts the next step in the jury, pre-selection process for the Lonnie Franklin trial. Back in December 2015, several panels of jurors went through the first stage to determine if they could serve for a several month trial. The 308 potential jurors that remained filled out an extensive jury questionnaire. Over the past month, the defense, prosecution and court read these questionnaires.
Friday, January 22, counsel and the court went through a per-elimination process where both defense and prosecution agreed to excuse potential jurors based on their answers, or in some cases no answers, on the questionnaire. [It took five file boxes for the prosecution to bring in the 308 completed questionnaires to court.]
Throughout this week, jurors will be questioned on only one aspect of their potential service, to select a panel that will be death penalty qualified. Judge Kennedy did tell counsel that she would question all jurors herself to help ensure that potential jurors had a good command of the English language as well as death penalty qualified.
Optimistically speaking, the official voir dire process will start Friday, January 29 and take up to two weeks to pick a jury.
Additionally, there are still several motions that will need to be litigated outside the presence of the jury.
Because of the small size of the courtroom and the number of jurors that are being called in each panel, it is highly unlikely that there will be any seats left for the press. On Wednesday, there is a hearing in the Michael Gargiulo case, and I will stop in on Dept. 109 to see if I can find out how things are going. I will try to get a seat during the start of voir-dire, but there is still no guarantee a seat will open up for me.
Note from Sprocket
I apologize that I have not been able to keep you up on all the pretrial hearings in the Franklin case. I caught the flu a week ago and I'm still not back 100%. Additionally, I had a bad fall in our front yard Saturday night.
Falling... it can be exhilarating for a base jumper. It's why they do it over and over again. For must of us though, falling is downright frightening... those few seconds you unexpectedly trip in the front yard [over the long arm of the hydraulic jack under the car] ... and become airborne. Then the ground comes up and smacks you hard. Sharp numbing pain shoots through parts of your body.
I know I didn't break anything, but it feels like I bruised a few ribs. I've been trying to take extra naps on the sofa to rest up. And I'm moving pretty slow.
In other news, Mr. Sprocket starts a whole new project/direction today and we are hoping things go well.
The next post on this case can be found HERE.
Complete T&T case coverage HERE.
CBS Los Angeles - Jury Selection Gets Underway