There will be no jury selection today, because of a personal obligation of one of the lawyers. As a result, court is adjourned until 8:30 am EST on Monday, October 25, 2021.
Judge Walmsley had hoped to have jury selection done this week, but allowed that it might continue into next week.
It looks, however, as if the jury selection process may take far longer than even that two-week period.
The media is reporting that this week the court “qualified” roughly 16 prospective jurors. That doesn’t mean “seated” (if it did, we’d be done with jury selection), but merely qualified for further voir dire in yet a third-stage of jury selection.
The media is also reporting that the court wants 64 prospective jurors “qualified” before starting the third-stage of jury selection, in order to be confident to arrive at the 12 jurors and 4 alternates needed for trial.
At the rate of 16 “qualified” prospective jurors per week, however, just achieving the 64 “qualified” goal would take a full four weeks. And then additional time would be needed in the third-stage of jury selection to distill the 64 “qualified” prospects down to the actual 16 jurors–perhaps a fifth week? Longer?
All of this, of course, is the result of the 20-some months of propaganda the local community, and hence the jury pool, has been subject to by the media and activists such as Attorney Benjamin Crump. They’ve effectively poisoned a large majority of prospective jurors such that it is impossible for them to be fair and impartial jurors, as the defendants are entitled they be.
Feel free to use the comments in today’s post as an “open forum” to chat amongst yourselves, and I’ll check in from time to time during the course of the day to answer questions.
You can find our analysis of yesterday’s voir dire here:
Arbery Case Day 4 Wrap-Up: Media Asks Judge to Lift Gag Order from Attorneys
Of the roughly 80 prospective jurors subject so far to general and individual voir dire, it’s my understanding that roughly 15 have been “qualified”–meaning that they remain prospects for ultimately becoming seated jurors–but that no single individual has yet actually been seated as a juror. The remainder of the prospective jurors have presumably been dismissed and sent home.
You carry a gun so you’re hard to kill.
Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
Nothing in this content constitutes legal advice. Nothing in this content establishes an attorney-client relationship, nor confidentiality. If you are in immediate need of legal advice, retain a licensed, competent attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.
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