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Friday, September 8, 2006
Jury may be sequestered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jurors in the murder trial of Dr. Barton Corbin may be sequestered, a judge told potential jurors on Friday.
Though he said he was leaning against it, Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Michael Clark told the 329 people during the second day of jury selection, that the final jury panel may spend up to four weeks sequestered.
Out of earshot of potential jurors Clark said any talk of not allowing jurors to go home at the end of each day “can make it hard to seat a jury.”
Friday was the last day of juror orientation in the Corbin trial before voir dire begins on Monday. Voir dire is the process where attorneys ask potential jurors questions in order to select the final 12 members and four alternates.
Corbin, who was in court Friday, is accused of shooting his wife Jennifer in the head in their Buford nearly two years ago. He also is accused of murdering his former girlfriend, Dorothy “Dolly” Hearn, in 1990. Hearn and Corbin were getting graduate degrees in dentistry from the Medical College of Georgia.
Defense attorney Bruce Harvey said he favored sequestering the jury, however, his co-counsel David Wolfe said they would wait through voir dire before deciding to push hard for it.
“It depends on their answers,” Wolfe said during a break in Friday’s hearing.
Earlier in the proceedings, Wolfe said he was very concerned about the amount of media attention the case was receiving and whether it was possible to find enough people who’d not yet formed opinions on the case.
Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said keeping the jury sequestered would only make “everything harder, logistics, everything.
“So we’ll just have to wait and see,” Porter said.
Corbin was present for the hearing wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and striped tie. His mother Constance Corbin sat in the back of the courtroom along with his sister-in-law Edwina Tims and his twin brother Bradley. At least twice Corbin tried to muster a smile when he looked at his family. Tims said her family was “frustrated, but relieved this is finally getting its day in court.”
No one from Jennifer Corbin’s family or Dolly Hearn’s family was there.
Possible jurors were brought into the courtroom just after 10 a.m., and told to complete a 13-page questionnaire in another room. That questionnaire asked personal information, such as the number of children each person has, and specific questions about their knowlege of the case. After filling out the questionairre the jurors were brought back into the courtroom where the judge asked more detailed questions of those who indicated that serving on the jury would cause a hardship.
In all, Clark excused 31 people from duty on Friday including a Snellville police officer, two pregnant women, several full-time college students, a couple of people who no longer live in Gwinnett and some people who are full-time caregivers for children under 6 years old. Several of those who were not excused expressed concern about the possibility of being sequestered. Those who are selected should expect to spend up to six days a week working on the trial, the judge said. As of Thursday nearly 100 people had been excused from serving.
At least one man on Friday asked to be excused because he said Barton Corbin had been his mother’s dentist, though the man had never had Corbin perform any of his dental work. He was not immediately excused.
Those who remained were clustered into groups of 16 and given dates to return for the individual questioning of voir dire. That begins 9 a.m. Monday and is expected to last at least two weeks. Clark said at least 42 qualified people will be needed to seat a jury.
Potential jurors were told not to discuss the case or read news accounts.
Clark said the court looked into finding hotels that could accommodate a jury of 12 and four alternates. He said one hotel had agreed, but later backed out.
Those who missed Friday’s orientation will have to come for a make-up session on Sept. 20. Court will end at 2 p.m. Sept. 22 in observance of Rosh Hashanah. Court won’t be in session on Oct.2 in observance of Yom Kippur.
The trial is expected to run until the end of October.
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14 more potential Corbin jurors dismissed; sequestration possible
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jury selection continued this morning in the murder trial of Dacula dentist Barton Corbin as 14 more potential jurors were dismissed.
Presiding Judge Michael Clark is now telling potential jurors that they may be sequestered.
Dismissed were a Snellville police officer, four college students and one man who just moved from Gwinnett County to DeKalb County. Four primary care givers, people with children age six and under, have been excused, along with two more college students, a man moving to Virginia in two weeks and a woman who said English was her second language.
But a woman who was eight months and three weeks pregnant was not dismissed from being a potential juror.
Gwinnett court officials have summoned 675 Gwinnett residents for the upcoming murder trial. Corbin, a former dentist, is accused of the 2004 death of his wife Jennifer and the 1990 Augusta death of his then-college girlfriend Dorothy “Dolly” Hearn.
As of Thursday, presiding Clark had dismissed about 100 potential jurors who submitted legitimate excuses.
Court officials believe the trial could start on Sept. 25 and go on until late October.
Officials have not decided if the jury will be sequestered, which would require they live in a hotel for the duration of the trial to ensure that they do not follow media coverage.
One of Corbin’s attorneys, David Wolfe, today asked Clark about sequestering the jury.
“We had one hotel lined up but they backed out. Sequestration can make it hard to seat a jury,” Clark said.
Wolfe went on to say he wanted the jury sequestered because of “what we’ve seen in the media so far.”
The remaining potential jurors are scheduled to fill out a lengthy questionnaire today. Attorneys will begin questioning them Monday.
Permalink | | Categories: Bart Corbin trial
