Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [110]
Secret Voir Dire255
Inside the courthouse, the process of seating a jury was not proceeding quickly. When Burnett asked if anyone on the jury panel had not heard about the case, not a hand was raised. By the second day, several prospective jurors had already been dismissed because they’d admitted they could not hear the case impartially.256On the first day, only one juror, a Jonesboro housewife, had been seated.
TheJonesboro Sun reported that the demeanor of the defendants in this second trial was as different as “night and day” from that of Jessie at his. Whereas Jessie had appeared meek, the paper noted, Damien was “furtively staring at the ceiling one moment, the next guffawing” at comments by the judge. The article noted that the defendant “tosses his long black locks around in search of the next prospective juror approaching the jury box,” “often looks at those in the press box out of the corner of his eye,” and “holds his head high, almost proudly, as he walks by the media.” The Little Rock reporter, meanwhile, was focusing on Judge Burnett, who, he wrote, struck “an occasional John Barrymore profile” for the cameras recording the event.
By the third day, as Damien and Jason were led into court, wearing the standard bulletproof vests, nine jurors had been selected. As Damien passed, a reporter shouted, “Who did it?” Damien answered, “Byers.” Though questions were shouted at Jason too, the younger boy did not respond. Inside, Burnett told a reporter that it was proving “almost impossible” to find citizens who could say they were impartial.257Then, noting that some prospective jurors had said that they were afraid, Burnett introduced another unusual element into the already remarkable proceedings. He told reporters that as jurors were selected, their names would be made public, but he asked that they not be published. “Because of the magnitude of this case,” he said, “some are fearful that it could affect their business. One or two have asked to remain anonymous.” Partly because of the prospective jurors’ concerns, Burnett explained that he was taking the further unusual step of having prospective jurors questioned privately in his chambers, rather than in open court.
The move represented yet another layer of secrecy imposed upon the proceedings, and as it had in the past, theCommercial Appeal protested. Lawyers for the Tennessee newspaper cited Arkansas law, which, they argued, provided for all trial and hearings to be held in public.258But the prosecutors, as well as Jason’s attorney Paul Ford, argued for keeping the process secret. “The potential jurors are not the people on trial,” Ford said during a hearing on the request. “We’re far more likely to get a fair jury, which is what we’re after, in private.” The judge agreed.259TheCommercial Appeal appealed the issue to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which scheduled an emergency session for the following Monday morning. But by then, a jury of eight women and four men had been impaneled. The jury included a nurse, three housewives, a building contractor, two factory workers, an air force airman, a bookkeeper, a speech pathologist, a state highway department worker, and a self-employed businessman.
Now that Jessie had been convicted, theCommercial Appeal also filed a freedom of information request, seeking access to the investigative file police had compiled on him. Arkansas’s freedom of information law required release of police investigative files when a case was closed, a point that is clearly marked when a defendant is sentenced. But Burnett denied that request too. He said that the files of all three defendants were combined and that “the right of a fair trial supersedes the right for the press to have access.”
Days later, the Arkansas Supreme Court finally ruled that Burnett