Thread by @socialistdogmom

last night’s recap is also a sneak preview of what we’re in for today, the third day of jury selection in the trial of james alex fields. it’s going slowly but surely. we should see a jury seated today.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1067631694780526593

we started out at 9:15 this morning with 13 potential jurors in the jury box. individual voir dire on this group will take through midday & a new batch will report at 1pm.

the 18 already selected were brought in & told to report back tomorrow morning at 9am, which means the judge is confident jury selection will be completed today, but that it will probably take all day. a total of 28 potential jurors must be chosen.

tomorrow will begin with peremptory strikes (each side will choose 6 jurors to eliminate) and then the trial will begin with opening statements thursday morning.

the court is having technical issues in the conference room, so individual voir dire is now being conducted in the courtroom, meaning the courtroom has been cleared & closed to the public. IT is working on the problem, but for now, if you were planning on coming out, don’t!

i was surprised to see the juror who was wearing a gigantic confederate flag belt buckle yesterday in the group of 18 people they’ve already selected. for all the questioning about bias, did they not see what she was wearing?

they should be wrapping up individual voir dire with this morning’s batch of potential jurors soon. the next group was told to report back at 1pm. we were 10 short of our panel of 28 this morning - hopefully we’re a bit closer now.

however many we still need to hit that 28 will be randomly selected from the pool that is arriving this afternoon. there will be a short period of questions to the group in court then those jurors will be questioned individually in chambers.

we are very close! just 4 jurors away from the 28 we need before peremptory strikes will take us to the 16 jurors who will hear this case. individual voir dire is now being conducted on a fresh batch of 18 jurors.

it was brought to the court’s attention this morning that some members of the community have received a racist, anti semitic robocall related to this case. the judge instructed jurors to hang up immediately and report it to the court if they receive one.

the calls refer to the victim in this murder trial, heather heyer, as a morbidly obese woman who died of a heart attack and say fields is being persecuted for standing up against the jewish agenda & displacement of white men.

the man behind these and many similar calls is scott rhodes, a neo nazi who lives in idaho.
theguardian.com/world/2018/sep…

rhodes has used similar racist robocalls to terrorize many communities. this isn’t even the first time he has targeted charlottesville. some residents received calls from rhodes around the anniversary of august 12th this year.
richmond.com/news/virginia/…

headed back to the courthouse now. i’m optimistic we could have our 28 jurors. very soon! since the ones already selected have already been sent home for the day, we could have an early day today (court went until 9:30 monday & 7:10 yesterday)

and we have our jury! almost. the 28 jurors have been selected. they’ll report at 9am tomorrow. peremptory strikes will begin at 9:30 & then the 16 jurors who will hear this case will be sworn in.
opening statements should begin around 10am.

i'm going to skip tonight's audio update because so very, very little happened today. that won't happen again in the course of this trial, so i'm going to use this opportunity to get a good night's sleep before opening statements tomorrow.