The fifth and last day of hardship jury selection was completed today

The fifth and last day of hardship jury selection was completed today. Two additional panels of 75 jurors each were brought into court this morning and afternoon.

Of the 150 prospective jurors met today, 111 were excused due to hardship and 39 were passed for hardship and filled out questionnaires. Those 39 jurors were given dates to return for general questioning starting on September 8, 2009.

The total numbers for the five days of hardship jury selection are: 750 total jurors examined; 510 of those jurors were excused for hardship and 240 jurors were passed for hardship and will return for questioning at a later date in September. This now completes the first phase of jury selection. The court wanted approximately 225 jurors to make it through this phase and we easily exceeded that number.

The next phase of jury selection starts on Tuesday, September 7, 2009 with questioning of the individual jurors who passed for hardship. This process starts on Tuesday and will be conducted through October 7, 2009. We are still very much on pace for the opening statements on October 13, 2009.

The trial resumes tomorrow morning, Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 10:00 with a hearing on the defense motion to dismiss all of the jurors that were selected over the course of the last five days on the basis that the system used by the San Mateo Superior Court is flawed in that it failed to call an adequate percentage of African-American jurors into the prospective juror pool (the 750 jurors called into the courtroom). We will present the testimony of the Superior Court jury commissioner who will testify how prospective jurors are called and how the court computer system does so randomly.

We will also discuss further the jury selection questions to be posed to prospective jurors next Tuesday and the ensuing days of jury selection. I believe the trial will be in recess Thursday afternoon and on Friday.