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Robert Durst’s trial, frozen by pandemic, will move to Inglewood – Daily Breeze
New York real estate scion's case will resume at Inglewood courthouse – tentatively, in July
May 22, 2020
New York real estate scion Robert Durst’s murder trial — on hold for more than two months due to the coronavirus pandemic — is being moved to the Inglewood courthouse, a few miles away from the courthouse where jurors initially began hearing the case, a court spokeswoman said.
Jurors are being instructed to plan on returning to court July 27, but that depends on how Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham rules at a hearing set for June 23 on the defense’s motion for a mistrial in the case, according to court spokeswoman Mary Hearn.
In their court filing, Durst’s attorneys contend that a lengthy delay caused by the pandemic has “made it impossible” for Durst to get a fair trial. They wrote that there has been a “prejudicial mid-trial delay” and it is “unrealistic” given the length of the break in the trial to expect jurors to remember the evidence they heard about Susan Berman’s December 2000 shooting death at her home in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles.
[.....]
Moving the trial from the courtroom where it was being heard to a larger one at the Inglewood courthouse will better enable the court to implement social-distancing protocols, according to Hearn.
Prosecutors in Durst’s trial have asked the judge to allow some witnesses to testify through a two-way video conferencing system such as Zoom or Skype to “avoid potential contagion or spread of contagion during air travel” in light of the global pandemic.
[.....]
In a separate motion, prosecutors asked that jurors be allowed to hear the videotaped testimony of the government’s star witness, Nathan “Nick” Chavin, and three other people who live outside of California.
In their court papers, prosecutors wrote that the four are all over 65 years old and are “at higher risk of severe illness or death due to COVID-19” and asked the judge to find that they are unavailable to travel to Southern California to appear before the jury in Durst’s trial.
New York real estate scion's case will resume at Inglewood courthouse – tentatively, in July
May 22, 2020
New York real estate scion Robert Durst’s murder trial — on hold for more than two months due to the coronavirus pandemic — is being moved to the Inglewood courthouse, a few miles away from the courthouse where jurors initially began hearing the case, a court spokeswoman said.
Jurors are being instructed to plan on returning to court July 27, but that depends on how Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham rules at a hearing set for June 23 on the defense’s motion for a mistrial in the case, according to court spokeswoman Mary Hearn.
In their court filing, Durst’s attorneys contend that a lengthy delay caused by the pandemic has “made it impossible” for Durst to get a fair trial. They wrote that there has been a “prejudicial mid-trial delay” and it is “unrealistic” given the length of the break in the trial to expect jurors to remember the evidence they heard about Susan Berman’s December 2000 shooting death at her home in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles.
[.....]
Moving the trial from the courtroom where it was being heard to a larger one at the Inglewood courthouse will better enable the court to implement social-distancing protocols, according to Hearn.
Prosecutors in Durst’s trial have asked the judge to allow some witnesses to testify through a two-way video conferencing system such as Zoom or Skype to “avoid potential contagion or spread of contagion during air travel” in light of the global pandemic.
[.....]
In a separate motion, prosecutors asked that jurors be allowed to hear the videotaped testimony of the government’s star witness, Nathan “Nick” Chavin, and three other people who live outside of California.
In their court papers, prosecutors wrote that the four are all over 65 years old and are “at higher risk of severe illness or death due to COVID-19” and asked the judge to find that they are unavailable to travel to Southern California to appear before the jury in Durst’s trial.
