The Salt Lake Tribune - "The second day began as the first ended: With pool members being brought one at a time to the bench of 51st District Judge Barbara Walther where discussions are held with prosecutors and defense attorneys. None of those exchanges can be heard at the back of the courtroom, where other prospective jurors and media are seated.
Under Texas law, voir dire of potential jurors must take place in open court."
The prosecution is trying to prevent FLDS members, from sitting on the Jury. That has to be done so as to not look discriminatory, but that's what's being done. Texas pretty much knows that if 3 FLDS members make it to a jury, the jig is up and the best they can hope for is a hung jury. Pretty much one juror from the FLDS will do the trick, but if the judge can sit only one, she can replace that juror later for "misconduct" with an alternate.
From where I sit, I don't see how there is a "right" of the state to have a fair and open chance to gain a conviction. The state, has no rights. The defendant does. They can seat juries easily for all of the upcoming trials in one morning. Simply don't object to FLDS members on the jury, that's all.
This comes from not recognizing the lost right of "
jury nullification."
"Nullification has a mixed history in the United States. Jury nullification appeared in the pre-Civil War era when juries sometimes refused to convict for violations of the Fugitive Slave Act because jurors felt the laws to be unjust. During the 20th century, especially in the civil rights movement era, some all-white juries acquitted white defendants accused of murdering blacks. During Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws, possibly as often as 60% of the time due to disagreements with the justice of the law. This resistance is considered to have contributed to the adoption of the Twenty-first amendment repealing the Eighteenth amendment which established Prohibition."
"(In) Georgia v. Brailsford (1794), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that juries have an absolute right to judge both the law and the facts of a case: And the Court thus established a precedent for the basic right to jury nullification."
Texas does not have a right to enforce it's laws, essentially, on a community that simply doesn't accept them. A defendant can elect to a trial by his/her peers, and if those peers don't see the law being applied as just, they can just sleep through the trial, and vote not guilty. By trying to NOT seat a jury, Texas tries to violate a basic right of each individual in the community, and that of the defendant.
All of this is window dressing for claiming on appeal, "why no, I did not discriminate against FLDS members," so the prosecution is looking for every legal fig leaf they can find. 12 men and women will happily come forward, but in reality, Texas wants a change of venue.
