Jury Selection

Bernard Eric Miller has lost his first effort to persuade an appellate court to overturn his conviction in the carjacking death last September of Pam Basu.The Maryland Court of Appeals, in a one-paragraph order signed Thursday, denied a petition to reverse Miller's April 23 conviction.But the ruling by Maryland's highest court ended just the first phase of the appeals process for Miller, a 17-year-old from Washington. He will be able to take his case back to the state's appellate courts after Howard Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney sentences him June 29.Laurack D. Bray, who represents the teen-ager, had asked the high court to make an early ruling on the conviction.

The verdict was in: A Howard County jury had convicted a 33-year-old Columbia man of second-degree murder and child abuse in the beating death of his toddler stepson. A day later, however, the jury commissioner heard from Adeyemi Alade, who said he was not a U.S. citizen - a prime reason for disqualification from serving on a jury in Maryland - but inadvertently failed to say so on the juror questionnaire. Now, nearly three years later, the state's highest court is being asked whether Alade's admission is cause to overturn Marcus Dannon Owens' guilty verdict in a case that points to courts' reliance on whatever potential jurors write on their forms and raises the question of what a jury of one's peers consists of. The case will be argued today before the Court of Appeals.

Six years after being indicted for manslaughter in the shooting death of an apparently unarmed teen-ager, and minutes before the start of his second trial, Baltimore police officer Edward T. Gorwell II was unexpectedly cleared yesterday when new evidence emerged in the case.Surprised city prosecutors decided to drop the charges, but left open the possibility that Gorwell might be charged again.Gorwell has always contended that he heard a gunshot and fired in self-defense when he killed 14-year-old Simmont Donta Thomas on April 17, 1993.

After a day of patient waiting and tedious questioning, scores of potential jurors went home last night with plans to return this morning as jury selection in the Ruthann Aron murder-for-hire trial continues.Montgomery County Circuit Judge Vincent E. Ferretti Jr., who at 4 p.m. announced to jurors that he would work into the evening to complete jury selection, reappeared just before 7 p.m. to apologize."When you're the judge, you have to take the heat," he told the group of nearly 200, who packed Courtroom One of the county judicial center.

The lone holdout juror in the murder-for-hire trial of Ruthann Aron didn't reveal that she had once been charged with battery, even though the question came up during jury selection, court records show.Shawn D. Walker, who refused to vote to convict Aron of plotting two murders, was alleged in September 1994 to have beaten, choked and threatened Julie Chen, then her roommate, according to Montgomery County District Court records.The criminal complaint -- which Chen soon withdrew -- was not known to prosecutors or Circuit Judge Paul McGuckian during the five-week Aron trial, in part because Walker did not bring it to their attention during jury selection.

With a murder trial due to begin next week in the starvation death of 9-year-old Rita Denise Fisher, the Baltimore County Circuit Court is preparing to question 300 potential jurors -- one of the largest pools in county history."

A judge yesterday refused to move the murder trial in the starvation death of 9-year-old Rita Denise Fisher outside Baltimore County, ruling that pretrial publicity will not necessarily prevent the three defendants from getting an unbiased jury.Rita's mother, sister and the sister's boyfriend -- all charged with first-degree murder -- listened expressionless, each clutching a Bible, as their lawyers played emotionally charged, videotaped news coverage of the girl's death in June for circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz.

TRENTON, N.J. -- Everyone knows what the prosecutors say happened to Megan Kanka.In the summer of 1994, they say, the 7-year-old girl was lured into the home of a neighbor with a record of sexual offenses against children, where she was raped and strangled. Her body was left in a pile of weeds in a park near her home in Hamilton Township.That story is well-known because her death almost immediately spawned a law in her name in New Jersey, as well as a federal law and laws in other states, aimed at notifying communities of sexual offenders in their midst.

Lawyers preparing for the Oklahoma City bombing trial and other experts following the case are concerned about the potential effect on the jury of a newspaper report that defendant Timothy J. McVeigh told his lawyers that he had driven the truck used in the bombing and that he had decided on a daytime attack to ensure a "body count."The article, published yesterday in the Dallas Morning News, first appeared on the newspaper's World Wide Web page Friday, the same day that questionnaires mailed two weeks ago to hundreds of prospective jurors were due at the U.S. District Court in Denver.

DENVER -- Jury selection in the second Oklahoma City bombing trial entered its fourth week in U.S. District Court yesterday, with lawyers for the prosecution and for the defendant, Terry L. Nichols, asking to have panelists removed for cause.Forty-one potential jurors remained. The jury pool must reach at least 64 before each side can make its 23 peremptory challenges. There will eventually be 12 jurors and 6 alternates.Yesterday, Judge Richard P. Matsch removed two jurors at the request of lawyers for Nichols and five jurors at the request of prosecutors, including two people who said they could not vote to impose the death penalty.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Wanda K. Heard knew it would be difficult to find a panel of jurors who hadn't heard about the case of Mark Castillo, who is charged with murder in the drowning deaths of his three children at an Inner Harbor hotel last year. But if Thursday was an indicator, it might just be impossible. Jury selection began about 10:30 a.m., when 145 people filed into Room 400 of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse, two floors down from Heard's usual courtroom and at least two times bigger.

Jury selection could begin as early as Wednesday in the triple murder trial of Mark Castillo, who police say confessed to drowning his three young children in a Baltimore hotel bathtub in March 2008 before unsuccessfully attempting suicide. Castillo's attorneys argued Tuesday to suppress the condemning statements he made to detectives shortly after the incident, though several delays prevented a ruling. The hearing is expected to continue Wednesday morning in Baltimore Circuit Court. Once the motions are resolved, the trial can begin.

Before a high-profile federal trial began in Baltimore last month, lawyers for the three black defendants filed a motion claiming that the prosecution deliberately - and illegally - dismissed black jury candidates to pack the panel with whites. "They want a jury that may be sympathetic to the death sentence," defense attorney Archangelo Tuminelli said. But the judge ultimately ruled that the allegation was wrong. And, it turns out, the stereotype might be, too. While many lawyers have long relied on stereotypes to figure out how potential jurors might lean, those characterizations are increasingly turned on their heads, trial consultants said.

Student arrested for having starter pistol An Annapolis High student will be charged as a juvenile after he brought a starter-style pistol to the school Thursday, according to Anne Arundel County police. No injuries were reported at the school at 2700 Riva Road. About 10:50 a.m., Annapolis High administrators received a tip that a student might have brought a gun to school, said Bob Moser, a spokesman for the public schools. A school resource officer and administrators found the student and escorted him away from other students.

They both lived on the streets, scraping together what money they could to get through each day. So when Michael Walter Evans Sr. came into $500 in cash - temporary help from his brother - Allan Jake Clark, a 23-year-old with drug problems, had to have it, prosecutors say. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in the beating death of Evans, 54, who was found dead April 5 on an air conditioning unit on Crain Highway in Glen Burnie, a block from...

Escaped inmate found in W. Baltimore house An inmate at the state's Metropolitan Transition Center in downtown Baltimore who escaped Monday was captured yesterday morning while hiding in a West Baltimore rowhouse, authorities said. Shortly after 8 a.m., members of the Regional Warrant Apprehension Task Force entered a house in the 900 block of Arlington Ave. and arrested Gerard Damon, 25, without incident. Damon had about 18 months left on three-year sentence for distributing drugs. Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said Damon was returning from a road crew assignment Monday afternoon when he walked away after getting out of a van at the minimum-security complex on Forrest Street between East Madison and Eager streets.

Jury selection began yesterday in the capital murder trial of John C. Gaumer, a former University of Maryland, Baltimore County student who is accused of killing a woman he met online and then disfiguring her body in an attempt to prevent her from being identified. Gaumer, 23, is charged with first-degree murder, rape and other offenses in the December 2005 killing of Josie P. Brown, 27, of Hampden. Prosecutors are seeking a death sentence in the case. Gaumer, who had never been arrested before police detained him for questioning in Brown's death, told investigators that he beat and sexually assaulted the woman on the side of a highway after she changed her mind about going home with him, according to a videotaped interview with police played during an earlier court hearing.

Five years ago, Thomas L. Bromwell Sr. learned how deeply FBI agents had penetrated his inner circle. James Eick, a Bromwell friend, had agreed to wear a recording device for federal agents. He was to capture any potentially incriminating conversations with the former Maryland state senator suspected of accepting illegal kickbacks while in office, according to prosecutors. Then Eick secretly switched sides. Eick warned Bromwell in November 2002 that he was wired, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen O. Gavin wrote in court papers.

The verdict was in: A Howard County jury had convicted a 33-year-old Columbia man of second-degree murder and child abuse in the beating death of his toddler stepson. A day later, however, the jury commissioner heard from Adeyemi Alade, who said he was not a U.S. citizen - a prime reason for disqualification from serving on a jury in Maryland - but inadvertently failed to say so on the juror questionnaire. Now, nearly three years later, the state's highest court is being asked whether Alade's admission is cause to overturn Marcus Dannon Owens' guilty verdict in a case that points to courts' reliance on whatever potential jurors write on their forms and raises the question of what a jury of one's peers consists of. The case will be argued today before the Court of Appeals.

A federal judge in Baltimore yesterday announced that the public corruption trial against former state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell Sr. and his wife will be delayed. U.S. District Court J. Frederick Motz said jury selection will begin on Thursday, four days later than originally scheduled to accommodate an attorney in the case whose mother recently died. Because of conflicts in the judge's schedule and other pre-trial motions hearings, opening arguments will not be heard until March 26, Motz said.