Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [117]
The next morning we arrived early for the first day of jury selection. We were warmly greeted by Beverly Andringa, the chief assistant state attorney and sort of second in command at the office, who then introduced us to Tom Diebold, the lead investigator in the office. Both Beverly and Tom were extremely helpful and offered us a conference room to use. Throughout the selection, Tom continued to assist us during the times when it became necessary for us to investigate what jurors told us about their backgrounds. In addition to offering us the use of their helpful staff, the state attorney’s offices were quite convenient, as they were located in the same building and on the same floor as the courtroom. It was just a matter of going out a door, and we were just down the hall.
The chief judge of the circuit allowed us to use their largest courtroom for the public proceedings and an adjacent room normally used by their grand jury as a waiting area for the potential jurors. The courtroom was huge. It could easily seat a hundred and fifty spectators.
During the lead-up to the trial, Judge Perry had frequently said that we would be using an unusual method for jury selection. To understand the importance of the change he was referring to, you must understand a little about the usual method of jury selection. First, the name is a little misleading. It makes it sound as if you get to look at a list of available options and choose the ones you like, like picking from a menu. The more proper name would probably be jury exclusion. Instead of being able to choose people you like, you actually can only exclude people you don’t. The normal procedure begins by questioning the jurors as a group all seated in one room. When all the jurors have been questioned, they are then individually offered to each side according to their order on a seating chart until the required number has been selected. This process gives the attorneys the advantage of knowing who the next juror will be, should they choose to exclude someone presently on the panel.
While this is the system that’s commonly employed, Florida law does not mandate this exact system. The judge has the ability to use alternate systems for selection, so long as the process does not unduly restrict the ability of both sides to ask relevant questions and does not prevent either side from excluding jurors up until the time the jury is sworn to hear the case. Sometimes judges get frustrated with attorneys using these rules in a tactical way to get a better jury. Throughout the jury selection Judge Perry kept changing the way he was doing it. We started with a group of one hundred potential jurors, and he began by discussing hardship, trying to weed out those who, because of economic or other personal issues, just could not serve for six to eight weeks. We lost about half the panel on that. With the pool that was left, he then brought them in individually to discuss publicity, the death penalty, and then any other topic that seemed fitting.
For the next day and a half we repeated that process over and over again. It was incredibly tedious. I must confess I hate jury selection, especially in a capital case where you hear the same questions over and over again. Ann Finnell, who would be handling that portion of the case for the defense, had a series of eleven questions that she asked of every single juror, and as you can imagine, by the fiftieth juror I could recite the questions from memory. By the two hundredth juror, I wanted to pull my hair out. To her credit, she accomplished all these questions with a terrible cold. I felt sorry for her; then I caught it from her. I was coughing for a month, while she was better in a few days.
When we got through the first hundred jurors