My understanding is that the jurors in this case are from Clearwater Florida. If I'm incorrect, someone let us know.
Clearwater Florida is a major HQ location of The Church of Scientology. :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology#Flag_Land_Base.2C_Clearwater.2C_Florida
The city is home to thousands of Scientology practitioners.
Did this ever come up in the original jury selection process? Were potential jurors asked about their religious background?
I'm no expert on Scientology, but I know they have very little use for anyone in the health field in matters of the mind and mental issues. They don't like or trust shrinks...
Also, they have very unusual beliefs concerning crime and punishment in general, with specific attention given to the death penalty.
Their founder, L. Ron Hubbard:
http://www.righttraining.net/page02.htm
"Capital punishment is neither ethical nor unethical. It happens to be a law, a code. It has to do with a wild, unreasoning effort to protect society, and a great deal of experience has demonstrated that it does not protect society. And all of this evidence to the contrary demonstrates, then, that capital punishment doesnt work. So therefore its
unethical conduct, actually, but its lawful conduct on the part of a state to administer capital punishment. "
More . . .
L. Ron Hubbard: The State, Punishment & Murder
YouTube - ‪L. Ron Hubbard: The State, Punishment & Murder‬‏
This seems significant to me. Has the topic of Scientologist jurors come up in this trial? I searched on the topic and found no hits on WS about it.
I wanted to make this a new thread, but I am a newbie here and didn't have the proper authority. If anyone puts this post, or one of their own in the main forum about this, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, any comments?