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Monday, September 26, 2011
Courts - Still more on: "Post-Chandra Levy murder trial 12/1: The secret juror questionnaires"
Updating this Jan. 4, 2011 ILB entry, the Blog of Legal Times posted a Sept. 20th entry that begins:
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday morning in the Washington Post's bid to have a lower court turn over questionnaires filled out by jurors in the trial against Ingmar Guandique.A District of Columbia Superior Court jury convicted Guandique in November 2010 of first-degree murder in the highly publicized death of former federal intern Chandra Levy.
Shortly after the trial began, the Post filed a motion asking the court to disclose a detailed questionnaire filled out by the 12 jurors and four alternates before they were chosen, but the trial judge denied the request.
The Post, supported by amicus briefs from other media organizations, claims that the judge made an arbitrary decision to withhold the questionnaires in violation of the First Amendment and common law. Voir dire is a public process, the paper argues, so the same public interest rights should apply to written questionnaires.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 26, 2011 09:31 AM
Posted to Courts in general