Wednesday evening - 55 Jurors in the pool

Another day of jury selection completed. Not the best of days in terms of three of the four jurors who were passed for cause. These three jurors lean strongly against the death penalty but remained on the jury because they stated they could still be fair and impartial and consider the death penalty in an appropriate case.

13 jurors were questioned today (instead of the usual 16 because three jurors were not present: one juror failed to appear, one juror flew to Taiwan to be with her ill father, and one juror was too sick to attend court) and four of the prospective jurors were passed for cause and return on October 8, 2009 for the final jury selection process. After 12 days of general questioning, 55 jurors have been cleared for cause (out of 187 jurors). There are three days and 49 jurors left in the scheduled jury questioning process. The trial resumes this morning with voir dire of a new group of 16 jurors.Just three days of jury questioning left.

Judge Parsons did not address the issue of what the court plans to do if we do not acquire enough jurors by the completion of jury questioning next Tuesday.

Only One Juror Added to the Pool Today

(picture from the San Jose Mercury News - Riderless Horse, with backward boots, outside the HP Pavilion Services for Rich)

The fifteenth day of jury selection overall and tenth day of general voir dire was completed. 16 jurors were scheduled for questioning today. One juror was passed for cause and 15 jurors were excused. All eight of the jurors in the afternoon were excused by stipulation of the parties based on their views on the death penalty. Excuses today were predominantly based on opposition to the death penalty, one excused for financial hardship (not previously raised), and several for their view that the only punishment for the murder of a police officer is the death penalty. After 10 days of general questioning, 46 jurors have been cleared for cause (out of 158 jurors). There are five days and 80 jurors left in the scheduled jury questioning process. The trial is in recess Friday and on Monday (religious holiday) and will resume on Tuesday with another 16 jurors.

www.OfficerRichardMay.net

Murder Trial of East Palo Alto Police Officer Rich may

[The front Seat of Officer May's Patrol car, taken a few weeks prior to Officer May's murder, by his father, Rick]

The first week of general questioning of the jurors was completed today. We questioned a total of 63 jurors and 17 made it through to the next phase. That seems small but it is about normal in a death penalty case. I think it was a good week for us and most of these 17 jurors would be pretty solid jurors for the prosecution in the case. Here is the breakdown for today:

The eighth day of jury selection overall and third day of general voir dire was completed yesterday. In the morning, one of the jurors (a 79 year old woman) passed for cause on Wednesday afternoon called and advised the court and counsel that after court she had major headaches and pain and requested to be excused for medical hardship. With the stipulation of the attorneys, the court granted the request and excused the juror. Yesterday 15 prospective jurors were questioned by the judge and attorneys concerning the death penalty, publicity and other issues in the case. Four of the 15 jurors were passed for cause and directed to return on Thursday, October 8, 2009 for the final jury selection process. A total of 17 jurors have been passed for cause so far.

The trial is in recess today and resumes on Monday morning at 9:00 with general voir dire of another 16 jurors.

www.OfficerRichardMay.org

First Day of Jury Selection - Rich May Murder Trial

Wednesday - Auguest 26, 2009

The first day of jury selection was conducted and 152 prospective jurors were brought into court (67 in the morning and 85 in the afternoon). The jurors were silent when Judge Parsons advised them that this was a murder trial involving the killing of a police officer but there was an audible and loud gasp/groan when they were advised the trial could last until mid-December.

The jurors were told to fill out a hardship form if they were requesting an excuse from the case due to hardship (financial, educational, medical, etc.). 58 of the 152 jurors were passed for hardship and filled out questionnaires (that is a high rate for a trial that could last to mid-December).
The trial resumes Thursday morning at 9:00 with hardship inquiry on two more panels of 75 jurors.

Murder Trial Finally Started - With Motions

The judge recovered and we were back in court today. Several motions were discussed and refined the jury selection process that starts tomorrow morning. Here is what occurred today.

Jury selection starts tomorrow morning, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 9:00. The first six days of jury selection will be spent on hardship inquiry: questioning jurors whether they have a hardship in sitting as a juror for a three month trial. These six days are August 25, 27, 31, September 1, 2 and 3. 900 jurors will be brought in for hardship inquiry. 150 jurors a day (75 in morning and 75 in afternoon) for the six days.

-The jurors will be advised that they will be needed for questioning for one day in September and if selected on the jury, they will need to be available from October 12, 2009 to approximately December 16, 2009. They will then be asked if they have a hardship which means financial hardship, school hardship, health hardship or language hardship that precludes them sitting on this jury. The court will discuss the hardship claims with the attorneys and rule whether to excuse the individual jurors requesting to be excused.

-Jurors who do not claim a hardship will then be asked to fill out a juror questionnaire (15 pages long with loads of questions about the juror and the juror's attitudes or topics like the death penalty, crime, police, etc.) Those jurors will then be given a day to return in September for individual questioning on their ability to be fair and impartial in this case.

-Individual questioning of the jurors who clear hardship will start on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 and will be conducted for the remainder of the month and perhaps the first week of October(Monday through Thursday; Fridays the trial is not in session). The court granted the defense attorneys' request for the trial to be in recess on Monday, September 28, 2009 (Yom Kippur).

-The jurors will come in groups of eight in the morning and eight in the afternoon and we will question the jurors on the specific topics of death penalty, gangs, pretrial publicity (knowledge of the case), police officer-victim and race. This questioning is to see if the jurors can be fair and impartial in hearing our case. It is a lengthy and tedious process but the goal is to get fair jurors.

-The court decided there will be five alternate jurors for our trial.

-As note above, the court set the tentative date for the opening statements for October 12, 2009 followed immediately the same day with the start of the prosecution evidence. The December 16, 2009 finish date is a broad guess and it is just to give the jurors a tentative outside date for completion of the case; it might go much quicker once we get going.

-The court denied the defense motion for a lengthy statement to the prospective jurors from the judge about the history of the death penalty in California and what the death penalty and life without parole mean today.

-Without prosecution objection, the court granted the defense request for 48 hour advance notice to the other side when one attorney is calling an expert witness (for planning purposes).

MURDER TRAIL WILL RESTART AUGUST 24

Hello all. Thank you for the many emails. A brief note...

The trial is currently scheduled to start in two weeks - assuming that no filings occur which will create another delay.

The Jury Selection process should start later in the week of August 24.

It is expected that opening statements and testimony from witnesses will begin at the end of September or more likely the first week of October.

The Defense is bringing a post-traumatic stress disorder claim along with a self-defense claim.

You can expect that Assistant District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe will bring a strong case against both of these claims.

Rich's Father...