Jury selection entered its second week Monday in the death penalty case against serial killings suspect Derrick Todd Lee, with eight people sworn in as tentative jurors for the trial.
Those eight people – five women and three men – made it through two rounds of rigorous questioning, but they could still be removed later by lawyers on either side as they work to assemble a 12-member jury with four alternates.
Two other potential jurors made it through the first round of questioning Monday. Jury selection was set to resume Tuesday.
Twenty-nine prospective jurors of 39 questioned have been dismissed since jury selection began a week ago in the trial against Lee for the beating and stabbing death of 22-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace.
Two prospective jurors were let go Monday morning for medical reasons. One woman was dismissed because her husband was having heart surgery, and the other woman was dismissed for an unknown medical problem she discussed at the bench with the judge.
The eight potential jurors who were sworn in were questioned together. While prosecutors had few questions for the group, Bruce Unangst, one of Lee’s lawyers, asked the men and women what they looked for in a credible witness, whether they trusted the police more than a typical witness and how they felt about Lee being presumed innocent.
Unangst asked the assembled group whether they understood that Lee didn’t have to testify in the trial and gave them reasons why an innocent man may not testify on his own behalf, including following the advice of his attorneys or being so nervous it might jurors think he is guilty.
“I think opening your mouth sometimes is worse than not opening your mouth,” one potential juror said.
Authorities say Lee murdered Pace, who was killed May 31, 2002, and six other women between April 1998 and March 2003. Lee, 35, is accused of first-degree murder in the Pace case.
He was sentenced last month to life in prison for a second-degree murder conviction in the beating and stabbing death of Geralyn DeSoto in neighboring West Baton Rouge Parish. He is appealing that conviction and has pleaded not guilty in the Pace case.
The entire prospective jury pool in the Pace case includes more than 400 people.
