Rafael Martinez, Jr., Trial - Day 3, Jury Selection

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Day 2 of Jury Selection....

Wednesday, January 28, 2014
Jury selection continued this morning from 11:00 AM to noon. We return for more voir dire at 1:30 PM.

At lunch, I'm searching the web trying to see if there were any news stories generated when Nancy and Shawn were murdered back in September 1997. I did not find a news story, but I did find this photo of Shawn, from the LA Times archived through a search engine. I also found photos related to the case (Nancy, suspect Martinez, detectives, etc.) on NewsSpy's Flicker account.

1:34 PM
Yesterday, during the back and forth questioning of the jurors, Judge Speer revealed that she recently sat on a criminal case in this very courthouse.


2:30 PM
The prosecution and defense accept the panel!  We have a jury of 10 women and 6 men.

Even though it's clear that Judge Speer has been nursing a sore throat and a slightly red nose, she did her best to get through initial jury instructions to the panel. She then excused the jurors for the day andordered them back at 10:30 AM tomorrow.  Counsel is expected at 10:15 AM.

4:45 PM
I'm home now. I just wanted to add that the photo of the defendant at NewsSpy Flicker account doesn't look very much like the man sitting in court.  Martinez, Jr., looks quite different. His hair is quite short and nicely trimmed, his face is much thinner and his skin tone is much lighter. I attribute his lighter skin tone to 'jail pallor' that is common among defendants who are incarcerated and do not always get daily access to sunshine/Vitamin D.

Martinez, Jr., is 42 years old. He was 25 when the crime was committed.

Day 4, Opening Statements.......