Jury selection, day 2

Jury selection continued today in the Neil Entwistle trial. The process tends to be repetitive and is never the most exciting part of a trial, but there was one big new development: the presence of Neil's family. His father Cliff, mother Yvonne, and younger brother Russell arrived in the courtroom this morning and sat in the front row on the right side of the room. The front benches on the left side are reserved for Rachel's family, who weren't there today. The Entwistles were all nicely dressed and behaved in a very dignified manner throughout the day. Neil smiled at his family as he entered the room and looked back a few times during the proceedings to smile at them again.

Basically the entire day consisted of Judge Kottmyer questioning individual jurors about the answers to the questionnaires they had filled out yesterday. She got through about 65 jurors today, 16 of whom were qualified, bringing the total to 24. The prosecution and defense have not yet had an opportunity to use their preemptory challenges (16 for each side), so there will need to be 48 qualified jurors to guarantee that enough remain for a jury of 12 plus 4 alternates.

At the beginning of court today, Elliot Weinstein asked the judge to reframe the questions for jurors, arguing that the questions tended to make jurors say whatever the judge wanted them to say instead of voicing their true opinions. Judge Kottmyer denied his motion, but Weinstein challenged several jurors for cause and on many occasions moved to ask them if they thought Neil was guilty, a question that was not, at least in those words, on the questionnaire. The judge denied all but one of his challenges and rejected all of his motions to ask them that question.

Tomorrow both sides will get a chance to use their preemptory challenges to kick out jurors for any reason they want, starting with the prosecution. There will almost certainly need to be more qualified jurors, however, so the individual questioning will probably resume again later in the day.