Judge Belvin Perry aborted jury selection on Tuesday afternoon, after he learned that potential jurors had discussed the case amongst themselves.
Perry sent home a batch of 50 potential jurors after one who is a witness in the case, discussed it extensively with fellow jurors. With a tainted jury pool, Perry had no choice but to send them home.
Earlier in the day, Perry had questioned a number of potential jurors, with many saying that they would experience “hardship”, financial or otherwise, if they were to be selected to serve for six to eight weeks, the likely duration of the trial.
On Wednesday, Day 3 of jury selection, Perry will again question a new panel of entire jurors.
Perry has warned that jury selection could now run through next Monday, because the entire panel of 50 potential jurors had to be dismissed today.
After jury selection was aborted, the matter of hair banding and postmortem root banding research being undertaken by the FBI was discussed.
Perry said that the court will resume at 9:00 am, tomorrow.
