Images for the Second Trial’s Voir Dire

To see the following images in context of the full description of the voir dire proceedings that day, follow this link to the first post in a nine-post series, or you can just use the images below if you’re reading along with the text in the print version of Aggravated.

This was the arrangement of prospective jurors in the courtroom after the first round of excuses had been fielded by Judge Hawes and the prosecution and defense teams. The original 95 prospective jurors (some of whom had been seated in the jury box to allow them all to be seated during that opening stage of the voir dire) had been whittled down to 64, their information cards had been shuffled, and they were reseated according to the order shown above.

About an hour later, when they let them go to lunch, five more of them had been excused, four of them had been on the first two rows on the left-hand side of the gallery. The others remained in those locations for the rest of the voir dire. No one else was eliminated until the rest of the voir dire had been completed.

Then, during the final stage of the voir dire, with the jury gone, Judge Hawes sent everyone above Juror #42 to another judge’s panel, and told the two attorneys to choose the alternate juror from Jurors 40, 41, or 42; and then pick their dozen jurors from the remaining jurors below #40. The floorplan above reflects who that jury was. Most, as you can see came from the front two rows on the left and right sides of the gallery.

Michael Sirois

Standard Disclaimer: Please post a comment below if you would like to. All comments are personally moderated by a grouchy old guy, though, so posts by self-promotional schemers, spammers, and lunatic ranters won’t make it through. Everyone else, whether your thoughts about this story are positive or negative, please feel free to speak your mind, but don’t ask me to reveal the identities of any of these individuals. Thanks.