No one in my hometown is too happy about this, but I guess it's gonna happen either way...
Even in Chesapeake, picking unbiased Malvo jury will be hard
Lee Boyd Malvo
By JOHN HOPKINS, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 4, 2003 | Last updated 1:43 AM Jul. 4
CHESAPEAKE -- The fate of Lee Boyd Malvo will be in the hands of 12 Chesapeake residents -- all of whom must be at least 18 years old and have a driver's license or a voter registration card.
Selecting a jury won't be easy, legal experts say.
Candidates will have to pass muster during careful examinations by prosecutors and defense attorneys who will be searching for any signs of bias.
The stakes are particularly high because the 18-year-old defendant, if found guilty, could be sentenced to death.
Malvo is the younger of two men accused of killing 10 people in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington area last fall. His trial in Chesapeake, scheduled to begin Nov. 10, is for three felony charges in connection with the killing of Linda Franklin outside a Home Depot in Fairfax County.
The 47-year-old FBI analyst, a mother of two, was leaving the store with her husband when she was shot in the head Oct. 14, 2002.
Malvo's trial was to take place in Fairfax County. This week, however, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jane M. Roush ordered the trial moved 200 miles south to Chesapeake to ensure that Malvo receives a fair trial.
The trial, Roush wrote in her decision to change venues, should be outside the Washington-Richmond corridor, ``where many citizens lived in fear during the month of October.''
But even in Chesapeake it will be ``extremely difficult,'' to find people who know nothing about the crime, said Franklin A. Swartz, a Norfolk lawyer with 37 years of experience as a defense attorney and prosecutor. The selection may boil down to those Chesapeake residents capable of making an extraordinary effort to put aside what they've already seen, heard and feared.
``Will they still be able to present an open mind? That is a psychological test of the human spirit because it would be very difficult for any human being, after seeing the tragedies from these brutal murders, to exclude that from his thought process,'' Swartz said.
From the beginning of the selection process, residents who are asked to serve cannot ignore the court. When a legal summons is delivered, usually by mail, they are required by law to respond.
Chesapeake officials said Thursday that they couldn't discuss the jury-selection process -- including how many prospective jurors may need to be called to find a panel of a dozen as well as a handful of alternates.
The city's jury coordinator builds a pool of jury candidates from voter registration and Department of Motor Vehicles records, according to Ken Mittendorff, chief information officer for the Virginia Supreme Court.
By comparison, Fairfax County uses only voter registration rolls, which some attorneys argue excludes many minorities and residents of lower socioeconomic status from jury pools.
Malvo's lawyers have argued that Fairfax County's voter rolls do not reflect the area's ethnic and racial diversity, effectively denying the black defendant a jury of his peers.
The outlook for a diverse jury is somewhat better in Chesapeake, where 27 percent of the city's 199,184 residents are black. Fairfax has a 8.6 percent black population, according to the U.S. Census.
While the trial is expected to draw worldwide media attention, no public statement has been made about whether the Malvo jury will be sequestered or will be able to go home each night. The trial is expected to last two months.
``Generally, the judges don't like to sequester jurors because it disrupts their lives,'' Swartz said. ``But in a case of this magnitude, it will be the judge's call.''
Amy Singer, a nationally recognized jury consultant from Florida, said strong media attention in murder trials often makes it easier for defense attorneys to narrow the list of potential jurors. In such cases, lawyers have the benefit of jury questionnaires to detect undesirable people in the jury pool.
Singer, president of Trial Consultants Inc., has been an adviser in many high-profile trials, including cases involving Michael Jackson, the tobacco industry and Firestone.
In Chesapeake, ``They're going to be asking people whether or not they believe in the death penalty,'' Singer said. ``People who say they don't believe in it will be knocked off the jury.''
But people often will lie to be a part of a high-profile trial, she said.
After 25 years as a consultant, Singer said, she has learned how -- with careful questioning and observation of body language -- to weed such candidates out of the jury pool.
Reach John Hopkins at 222-5221 or e-mail
john.hopkins@pilotonline.com