INTERVIEWS SLOW JURY SELECTION : MURDER TRIAL IN OFFICER'S DEATH AT LEAST MONTH AWAY.Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer Relying on the longest questionnaire used to seat a Ventura County jury, attorneys for Daniel Tuffree have spent a month excusing residents - and still remain a month away from selecting the panel. Pretrial publicity The right of a criminal defendant to receive a fair trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The right of the press (print and electronic media) to publish information about the defendant and the alleged criminal acts is guaranteed by the First Amendment. is only one issue attorneys face in selecting jurors to hear the case against the former school teacher charged with killing Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. police Officer Michael Clark Michael (or Mike) Clark can refer to the following people:
Tuffree has pleaded not guilty to the Aug. 4 shooting death of Clark outside Tuffree's home. Clark was one of three officers who went to check on Tuffree after a mental health worker reported he had been drinking alcohol and demanded by phone that a Valium prescription be refilled. Clark is the first Simi Valley police officer killed in the line of duty In the Line of Duty may refer to:
Ventura County prosecutors contend Tuffree had a grudge grudge tr.v. grudged, grudg·ing, grudg·es 1. To be reluctant to give or admit: even grudged the tuition money. 2. against Simi Valley police and intended to kill Clark during the confrontation. Tuffree's public defenders public defender, governmental official who represents indigent persons accused of crime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel to pretrial proceedings and holding that a person cannot be sentenced to even one day in jail unless a lawyer was contend that he wanted to be left alone and fired his handgun after Clark panicked and fired the initial shot in the gunfight. The trial isn't expected to begin until July 15 at the earliest. Yet a jury consultant who has been on other high-profile trials said Tuffree will come to trial in Ventura Superior Court sooner than other defendants who have faced the death penalty in California. ``Two months (of jury selection), that's quick. That's moving right along,'' said Edward Bronson, a California State University, Chico References 1. ^ "California State University, Chico", Yahoo! Education, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. , political science professor. A consultant on change of venue A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread publicity about a crime and/or defendant(s) and jury selection issues since 1969, Bronson most recently consulted on the Polly Klaas murder case in Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern and the Oklahoma City bombing See Terrorism "The Oklahoma City Bombing" (Sidebar); Venue "Venue and the Oklahoma City Bombing Case" (Sidebar). case. Bronson also assisted Tuffree's public defenders earlier this year in an unsuccessful effort to keep Simi Valley and Moorpark residents out of the pool of potential jurors. Bronson said lengthy jury selection for the Tuffree trial is driven by the decision on both sides to use a questionnaire and interview each potential juror juror n. any person who actually serves on a jury. Lists of potential jurors are chosen from various sources such as registered voters, automobile registration or telephone directories. . ``You just have a lot of community sentiment that you need to protect against,'' said Bronson, who noted that the use of questionnaires has become more common during the past decade. ``The impact of that is the jury selection procedures become much more elaborate.'' The alternative is asking a judge to move the trial to another county in California. Tuffree's defense decided against it after compiling the results of a survey on pretrial publicity. Tuffree's public defenders instead filed the motion to bar Simi Valley and Moorpark residents from the jury pool. Results of the Bronson survey showed more residents from those two cities knew about Clark's killing and believed Tuffree was guilty than in other parts of the county. In rejecting the motion, Judge Allan Steele contended that questioning during jury selection would root out individuals with bias in the case. Tuffree stands indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. on a charge of murdering Clark and for attempting to murder one of the two other officers who backed up Clark. The indictment includes a special circumstance that Tuffree intentionally killed Clark, making Tuffree eligible for the death penalty. The questionnaire approved by Steele features 153 questions, going beyond personal background and previous jury service to categories including law enforcement, weapons and self-protection, teaching, mental health and the death penalty. ``It's as long a questionnaire as I've ever seen in this county,'' said Deputy District Attorney Pete Kossoris, who is working his seventh death-penalty case. ``The questionnaires just seem to grow with time. That just seems to be a pattern,'' he noted. ``Lawyers seem to want more information than less and each side wants different things.'' Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher said the questionnaire could have been shorter. He contended, however, that ``you really can't know too much'' about each potential juror to ensure a fair and impartial Favoring neither; disinterested; treating all alike; unbiased; equitable, fair, and just. panel. ``People who get excused usually get excused because of their views on the death penalty,'' Asher said, referring to the selection process so far. ``If people feel very strongly about the death penalty being used in certain cases, then those feelings are stronger when the case involves an officer.'' Attorneys began going through the pool of potential jurors May 14. After jurors were excused for hardships, such as summer vacations Summer vacation (also called summer holidays or summer break) is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students are off for 3 months, depending on the country and district. and employers who won't pay workers for lengthy jury service, a pool of some 170 jurors remained. Attorneys began individual questioning May 28 and they said the process should be completed by July 8. Then two or more days will be needed to select the panel of 12 jurors and alternates. The death penalty raises the stakes in jury selection, Bronson said. ``It's like planning for two trials because the penalty phase, if you get there, is a whole different dimension,'' he said. In the first phase, a jury determines guilt or innocence. If the jury finds a defendant guilty, the second phase is to consider recommending a sentence of life in prison or death. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (color) Edward Bronson Conducted survey on publicity |
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