Monday, Nov. 09, 2009

FINAL UPDATE: Jury seated in Shelnutt trial, testimony begins Tuesday morning

Nearly 10 hours after jurors reported to the federal courthouse in Columbus, a jury was seated in the federal corruption trial of Columbus attorney Mark Shelnutt.

The panel of seven men and five women was chosen just before 6:30 p.m. after a day of questioning by U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land and prosecutors and attorneys representing Shelnutt. The panel includes six whites, five blacks and one Asian.

Shelnutt is accused of aiding and abetting a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, money laundering, witness tampering and attempted bribery. The judge hopes to have a jury seated by the end of the day.

If convicted of the cocaine distribution charge alone, he faces 10 years to life in prison. The case was brought after numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies investigated Shelnutt's connection to the drug ring led by convicted dealer Torrance Hill, who is currently serving more than 24 years in prison.

Testimony will begin at 8 a.m. Tuesday. There was about two hours of individual questioning before the jury was picked.

In addition to the 12 jurors, there are four alternates, three women and one man.

The judge told perspective jurors he expected the trial to last about two weeks. The prosecution will present its case first.

Questioning continues

Questioning of potential jurors continued late this afternoon in the federal corruption trial of Columbus attorney Mark Shelnutt.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land wrapped up questioning of the jurors as a group about 3:45 p.m. The judge and attorneys on both sides then moved to a third-floor courtroom where individual questioning began. Potential jurors were asked about possible bias, what they knew about the case and how they knew it.

Shelnutt was in the courtroom as the jurors were questioned individually.

One potential juror, a man from Cusseta, was asked if he had read about it. He said, “No, I don’t read newspapers, but I might have seen something on the Internet.”

One woman said her husband was a Columbus Police officer. She was asked if she talked to him about it and she said, “We don’t discuss his work.”

The judge dismissed a woman from Cusseta because she did not have reliable transportation.

A man who said he got his information from the Ledger-Enquirer and from AM-540 was dismissed when he told the judge he has already formed an opinion. He said that when he read that Shelnutt had been indicted, the first thing that popped into his head was that “he had to have done it.”

Land gave no indication how late jury questioning would continue this evening.

Jury candidates not named

Earlier today. the pool of about 120 possible jurors from about a 10-county area were questioned by Land for more than two hours as the judge and attorneys tried to find possible conflicts of interest or those who could not render a fair verdict. Many of those who were dismissed were because of medical reasons and they are full-time students.

One of the questions put to the potential jurors was if they knew Shelnutt. A number of them did, including four who knew him because they attend the same Columbus church -- St. Luke United Methodist, which is less than a block from the courthouse where Shelnutt's fate will be decided.