As many of those following the Jeremy Mardis case already know, jury selection began on Monday of this week. It was a long and arduous process, with some 600 summons being served through out the parish 300 for Monday and 300 for Tuesday. Preliminary reports state that very few of those citizens called do do their civic duty actually showed up. Of those who did, large numbers were dismissed early on. Monday saw 6 jurors tentatively seated.
Tuesday was a new day and new potential jurors were screened. It quickly became apparent that Avoyelles Parish citizens were very interwoven into each others lives, and into the goings on in the community. There were those dismissed for having previous interactions with either one or both defendants, having already formed firm opinions on the case, and one man was dismissed because he had an autistic son. {Jeremy Mardis had autism} Yet another man was dismissed because Norris Greenhouse, Sr. had been his divorce lawyer many years ago. This man also at some point expressed negative feelings toward one of the defense’s witnesses. This witness also happens to be Judge Bennett’s (The presiding Judge in the case) daughter.
Wait… what?? Yes Dear Reader, you read that correctly. One of the witness’s for the defense is the daughter of the Judge…………………. If anyone has any further info on this, please leave it in the comments. I am very curious to know what she has to do with this case. Character witness perhaps?
Throughout the week this song and dance went on, with people who had known people associated with the case, or had formed strong opinions. Goins, attorney for the defense raised allegations of race being a factor in jury selection, to which the state’s rebuttal was that Goins himself had dismissed only white jurors. Finally on Friday, before noon the jury and alternates had been seated. The previous change on venue motion was denied and trial was set for Monday, March 20, 2017.
Goins and his team filed an emergency writ for delay of trial in order to prepare a defense for the recently added ballistics expert witness for the prosecution. Bennett originally denied a delay of trial motion thus, causing Goins to file the writ. No word on the outcome of this has been published.