Meet the jurors

MIAMI — Juror No. 433 is a white woman who had an alcoholic stepfather and works as a billing clerk at a children’s psychiatric center.

Juror No. 338 is a black man who was raised by his mother and his grandmother and whose brother just got out of the Air Force.

Juror No. 871 is a Hispanic woman who is a financial analyst and roots for underdogs. Juror No. 266 is a black woman who is worried about missing singles night at church. Juror No. 114 is a white woman who is a retired librarian and whose daughter was sexually molested about 30 years ago by her ex-husband.

These are some of the people on the diverse, painstakingly picked, six-man, six-woman jury that over the next two to three weeks will hear the four-count criminal case of John Evander Couey. The jury was finalized Wednesday afternoon just before 4 here in Courtroom 4-1. There are also three alternates.

Court starts Thursday morning at 10. Circuit Judge Ric Howard told the jurors to expect the trial to last two and a half to three weeks.

Couey, 48, is the bald-headed sex offender who is accused of taking 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford from her Homosassa home one night in February 2005, then raping her, then burying her alive in trash bags with her wrists bound with speaker wire. He is charged with kidnapping, burglary with battery, sexual battery on someone under 12 years old and first-degree murder.

The state is seeking the death penalty.

“We’re talking real life here,” prosecutor Pete Magrino told one of the last panels of potential jurors on Wednesday. “In fact we’re talking real death.”

The jurors will decide on two things:

Is Couey guilty or innocent?

And if he is guilty, should he live the rest of his life in prison, with no possibility of parole, or should he die by lethal injection?

“I envy nobody in here,” Juror No. 871 said in one of her answers, “because this is a tough job.”

Attorneys on this case tried to pick a jury in July in Lake County but couldn’t do it because too many people there knew too much from the news media coverage about the story of Couey and Lunsford.

That’s why the process was moved here. It hasn’t been easy the second time around, either — jury selection started Feb. 12, and it has been a long, tedious two and a half weeks — and attorneys questioned 288 potential jurors in all.

By midday Wednesday, though, the panel started to come into focus.

Most legal analysts see this trial not so much as a question of guilt but ultimately about whether Couey gets to live or is sentenced to death.

All of the jurors told attorneys they had no strong feelings either way about the death penalty.
Also of note with this jury:

“You have an awful lot of jurors with some connection to psychological careers either themselves or through their families, and quite a few who have a military or law enforcement background,” Stetson University College of Law professor Charlie Rose said in an e-mail Wednesday afternoon after reviewing a Times-compiled list of quick juror bios.

“This is not a bad jury for either side,” he wrote, “but if the defense can properly and cogently present mental impairment, and perhaps even prove it during sentencing, there may be an actual fight about the sentence recommended.”

“It appears to be a balanced jury, both racially and employment-wise,” Brooksville defense attorney Ashley Aulls wrote in an e-mail.

“Jury selection is an art, not a science,” he added, “and sometimes jurors are picked based on gut instincts. But all four attorneys on this case have done this for a long time.”

On Wednesday, just like over these last couple days and weeks, potential jurors were asked questions about everything from what kind of car they drive to whether they could live with themselves if they sentence a man to die.

“I’m going to be asking each of you to search your heart and search your soul,” Howard told them Wednesday.

Juror No. 871 was asked if she could go with death if she felt it was the appropriate sentence.
She paused.

“Yes,” she said.

She looked over at the defense table, real quick, and at Couey.

“Yes, she said again.

BY MICHAEL KRUSE AND JOHN FRANK, Times Staff Writers

Ladies and gentlemen ...

The news from Miami is this: There is now, after two and a half tedious weeks of jury selection, a seated panel of 12 jurors who will hear the criminal case of John Evander Couey. Six more potential jurors were excused after this morning's questioning. Next task: getting four alternates. Court is now breaking for a lunch of less than an hour. Opening statements are on schedule for Thursday morning.

-- Michael Kruse

Manatees in the courtroom

One potential juror took time during his answers to Alan Fanter's questions to comment on the defense attorney's tie today. There are pictures of manatees on it. Very North Suncoast.

"You're wearing a beautiful tie," the man said. "I can't get off it."

The man said he liked to look at the manatees in the waterways down here in South Florida.

Other than that, more questioning, and more, and more, and still more -- but there seems to be some light at the end of this jury selection tunnel. The group that's going to hear the case of John Couey is starting to take shape in the box inside Courtroom 4-1.

-- Michael Kruse

More dismissals

Three more potential jurors were excused after private bench conferences this morning here in Courtroom 4-1. There are 11 jurors seated right now. Another batch of potentials is in right now. Five more are needed to get to the necessary amount of 12 jurors and four alternates for the start of opening statements that could come tomorrow morning.

Done for the day

Judge Ric Howard told remaining potential jurors to be back at 8:30 Wednesday morning, and in the meantime, of course, to shun any and all news in the papers and on TV, radio and the Internet. Couey has left the courtroom. Looks like opening statements will come Thursday morning.

-- Michael Kruse

Down the stretch ...

The numbers now: Seven potential jurors were released in the latest strikes, which leaves 11 in the box. There are 21 still to be questioned -- and from those 21, five more are necessary to get the 12 jurors and the likely four alternates. Sources in court say the defense is out of strikes. So ... a jury picked by midday tomorrow ... opening statements first thing Thursday? Maybe.

-- Michael Kruse

Instability, environment, desperation?

More reasons for crime, according to potential jurors, responding to questions from prosecutor Pete Magrino here mid-afternoon in Miami:

"Abuse as a child."

"Some people do it just to do it."

"Psychological."

"Emotionally unstable."

"Definitely environment."

"Lack of education."

"I think desperation."

"Self defense."

"You could do it for money."

-- Michael Kruse

The numbers game

The latest tally here in Miami, thanks to Times staff writer John Frank's phenomenally detailed, meticulously kept spreadsheet: Attorneys dismissed nine more potential jurors after coming back to court from the lunch break -- in bench conferences that were still private, by the way. That leaves 39 potential jurors from the pool of 71 that made it to this second round of jury selection. This trial, of course, being a death penalty case, needs 12 jurors, and there likely will be four alternates, too.

Opening statements, obviously, can't happen before a jury is seated.

"I'd be surprised if we get one today," prosecutor Ric Ridgway said after lunch. "Pleasantly -- but surprised."

-- Michael Kruse

'Well, you're wrong'

Here, in video from the Ocala Star-Banner, is Judge Ric Howard's testy response to Monday's media request to make public the contents of the bench conversations about the reasons for the dismissals of certain potential jurors.

Time to look around ...

Jury selection: Long? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. Boring? That, too -- most definitely. In the meantime, though, plenty of time to look around and make notes: Judge Ric Howard, black-stone ring on his right hand, cracking his knuckles, yikes, that microphone sure picks stuff up, Couey and his little hands and that pencil of his, erasing, head down, six art-deco type lights hanging from the ceiling above Howard's head, a Florida flag, an American flag, high wood walls, bright fluorescent lights, "WE WHO LABOR HERE SEEK ONLY TRUTH." About to be back from lunch here.

-- Michael Kruse