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Monica Lindstrom

Updated Apr 30, 2015 - 1:06 pm

Legally Speaking: Fourth day of Arias trial slow yet emotional

Day four of jury selection in State v. Jodi Arias was what some would call “slow” yet the comments and stories that came out were emotional, moving and enlightening.

I agree the jury selection process can go slow, especially in a high profile murder case, yet considering the jurors are the ones deciding life or death, the attorneys cannot afford to speed through the process. The stakes are too high.

The potential jurors that were brought back to the courtroom today for small group questioning were diverse in terms of age, race and life experiences. They were mothers, fathers, grandparents, married, lesbian, male, female, Hispanic, white, black, old, older, young, really young, nurses, hunters and law enforcement.

The commonality was that every one of them appeared to take the situation seriously. They answered the attorneys’ questions in a respectful manner, and most shared openly and freely, sometimes a bit too freely. (Sidebar: No one, other than attorneys and law students, want to be on a jury, yet in my experience I have found that once on one, the juror enjoyed their experience and feels proud doing their civic duty.)

You can learn a substantial amount of information by listening, really listening, to jury selection. So, this begs the question, what did I learn from the potential jurors today? I learned:

• There are a lot of people in Maricopa County who are victims of, or have been involved in, domestic violence. (I wonder if people know that October is also domestic violence awareness month).

• A large percentage of people do not know how to translate their feelings and beliefs into the written word when it comes to the death penalty. When confronted with their written answers, many jurors changed their minds or stated that must not have understood the questions. (This is a strong indication that some of the questions in the lengthy jury questionnaire were confusing and exhausting.)

• That people want the whole story, and remorse for a person’s actions is important. (Arias needs to show remorse, and both sides need to tell the entire story, not just snippets, which means it could take longer than originally anticipated).

• People are largely willing to discuss their decision with others.

• And most importantly, for purposes of this trial, that if a person states they are a supporter of the death penalty, that doesn’t equate to them believing Arias deserves death.

At the end of day four, 26 of the original survivors of the first round of jury selection were questioned on Tuesday. Twelve of those were excused along with one other. Based on my calculations, of the 400 initial jurors, approximately 35 percent remain. If 18 jurors are needed for the retrial, with each side getting 10 strikes, then only 38 eligible jurors are needed for the last round, and we definitely have that now.

Day five will bring one more panel into the courtroom for questioning with the rest being excused. What does all this mean? This all means that there were more than enough eligible jurors in Maricopa County to sit on this retrial, and we are one step closer to the opening statements.

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