CrimLaw

Sniper: Malvo

Selection of 28 potential jurors has been completed.

Of the 28 finalists, 10 are white women, 10 are white men, five are black women, two are black men, and one is an Asian man. Each side will get six peremptory strikes to reduce the group to 16. Four of those remaining will be chosen as alternates before the trial begins Thursday with opening statements, but they will not be notified of their status until after closing arguments.

I think one woman earned herself the first peremptory strike from the prosecution by telling "Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush that her Catholic religion likely would prevent her from imposing the death penalty. "I try to be open-minded, but I think I'm 95% sure," she said. But the judge qualified her as a possible juror because she said she could follow jury instructions."

An exchange occurred during voir dire which the defense got the better of:

"We'll be putting on an affirmative defense of insanity," Cooley told jury candidates at one point. "Indoctrination is a form of insanity."

Horan immediately rose to his feet and objected. "Indoctrination is not a form of insanity," he said, his voice rising. "It's not."

"It is a dissociative disorder," Cooley countered. He said indoctrination can be found in a manual listing mental diagnoses and illnesses and widely used by those in the mental health profession.

Judge Jane Marum Roush intervened and overruled Horan's objection. She said defense lawyers have a right to inquire whether prospective jurors would fairly consider the defense's theory of the case - that a personality disorder means Malvo is not responsible for his alleged crimes. How much weight to give mental-health experts is for the jury to decide, she said.

Now the jurors know that indoctrination can render a person insane if they decide it renders him insane. They may also have an inkling of the disparity in representation between the lawyers for Malvo and the lawyer for the Commonwealth. Why these people didn't go straight to Von Schuch when they heard Cooley was representing Malvo is beyond me.

In a disturbing disclosure, "[p]rosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said late Tuesday that he thought one of the jurors already qualified for the panel had a felony record of grand larceny, and that police were checking into the possibility." How would you know that about a citizen from a county where you have had no contact with the local legal system unless you were using the power of the State to research the backgrounds of the jurors? I guess someone could have walked up and said "You know Bubba stole a weedwhacker from Joe's Hardware 20 years ago" but it just seems unlikely.

Miscellaneous Articles:

(1) An article discussing how clothing and courtroom behavior may affect the case.

(2) An article discussing the assertion that the anti-terrorism law should not apply.

(3) A picture of the Malvo Defense team.