arielilane
Justice for Liz Barraza
Zach's remaining tweets (after the 10 minute break)
We are back for the second half of today's jury trial. The next 1.5 hours should be taken up by Voir Dire, where the prosecution and defense each get 45 minutes to ask the remaining potential jurors questions. We are starting off with the prosecution.
Voir dire will give a bit of insight into what each set of attorneys are looking for in an optimal juror for this trial.
A lot of questions about media exposure from Allen, and if the current crop of potential jurors are able to separate the news they've seen from the evidence and testimony that will be presented at trial. None of the remaining people are indicating that would be a problem.
Some other topics of conversation from Allen include the importance of a motive in assuming someone's guilt or not, as well as if potential jurors can stay engaged for the entirety of this potential trial. A wide range of answers to all questions thus far.
Specifically, on the topic of motive - which Allen has been talking about for nearly 10 minutes now - many potential jurors are split on if motive would be an issue or not in providing a guilty verdict.
On to the defense's voir dire, Josh Tolini is spending the first chunk of his time pressing potential jurors on hardships they have and if they could truly be here for a full 6-8 weeks without any issues.
The importance of perceived bias is being brought up again by Tolini, but this time under the light of presumption of innocence. "You have to come in here presuming she (Stauch) is innocent.”
Clearly, the #1 concern for Tolini at the moment is grilling pretty much every potential juror on if they could truly presume someone is innocent when the allegations against Stauch are as horrific as they are. A few people admitted it would be "hard" or "difficult.”
At the end of Tolini's voir dire, he got a handful of potential jurors to admit that they find the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity as not a legitimate defense in general. "I think it's for cowards," one woman remarked.
Only 20 potential jurors now remain after Werner dismissed 12 more people following the end of voir dire. The remaining 20 potential jurors will return on April 3 for the end of jury selection.
We will get back at it tomorrow when a new group of 75 will be brought into the courtroom and the same process will play out as today. This will be repeated every day until a pool of around 110 are selected for the final stage of jury selection on April 3.
Today is a glimpse into why this process is expected to take two full weeks. It took seven full hours today for the court to come up with 20 potential jurors out of the 110 needed.