Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Not much to report today. The trial gets into gear tomorrow (Thursday) with opening statements expected to begin after lunch, or at about 1-1:30 p.m. This assumes that jury selection will be completed in the morning.

There was a large pool of 111 potential jurors available today. Judge Seabright moved a trial date and donated his jury pool to Judge Mollway for this trial.

Prior to jury selection there were two issues that came up. It was discovered that one of the attorneys now on the defense team represented three witnesses in the past, before the grand jury. That could represent a conflict of interest. Heck, Hawaii is such a small place… Judge Mollway asked the Sous (Mike and Alec, the defendants) if this would be a problem for them, and they indicated that it would not.

Then it turned out that one of the translators did some work for the FBI (an FBI representative sits with the government attorneys in court). The court has no translators in the Thai language, and in particular, translation is needed for the rural dialect that the Thai witnesses speak. One of the defense attorneys, Tom Beinert, is to check to see if he can locate another translator. This should not turn into a big obstacle, though.

Judge Mollway showed considerable respect and deference to the situation of individual jurors during jury selection. Any for whom serving in a multi-week trial would be an economic hardship were readily excused. One juror was about to begin his apprenticeship as a carpenter. He was excused.

Judge Mollway kept the tone light, even comparing the wireless mike passed around to jurors to a karaoke microphone. It worked, each juror held the mike up close and kept it horizontal so it could transmit properly.

If I need to tell you how jurors held the microphone, you see that it was not really an exciting day.

Tune in tomorrow when the trial really begins.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 7/27/2011 09:51:00 PM