Jury selection for Schoharie Limo Trial enters day four
SCHOHARIE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — It's been a revolving door for the first group of potential jurors seated for the fourth day of jury selection. Many candidates were dismissed because of different conflicts of interest.
The judge, prosecution and defense are working to make sure any juror that does get picked will be fair and impartial.
“I have a series of questions that I want to ask to figure out if the people in front of me are being a good juror but also, it’s very much a human interaction where you’re trying to connect with people to get some answers from them," Lee Kindlon, Nauman Hussain's defense attorney, said.
Kindlon said criminal trials rarely take more than half a day to fill jury seats, but this case is different.
“I’ve warned him and I’ve warned everybody else this is a marathon, not a sprint, we’re going to be here for a while," Kindlon said. "Let’s not get too high, let’s not get too low and eventually we’ll get through the openings, proof, closings and a verdict.”
Some people were dismissed early on because they know one of the over 100 potential witnesses; those names were read to the group yesterday afternoon. Others said they have too much prior knowledge of the case or something that would personally prevent them from being fair. Still others had connections to first responders who were at the scene of the crash in 2018, or to the victims, or their families.
Once this jury is selected, we're told this trial could take four to six weeks so overall.