Opinion ID: 1206820
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: voir dire examination of gloria gonzales

Text: BY THE COURT: Q. Mrs. Gonzales, you have been a juror before? A. Yes. Q. Has that been on both civil and criminal cases? A. No, just criminal. Q. You're familiar, then, with your responsibilities and obligations as a trial juror in a criminal case. A. Yes, sir. Q. Taking that experience into consideration, along with the question which I asked of the panel as a whole this morning, was there anything about those questions that would have caused you to have responded differently than the panel as a whole? A. No. Q. Do you have any religious or conscientious scruples that would prevent you from ever returning a verdict of first-degree murder, even if the evidence warranted the same? A. No. Q. Have you read, heard, or seen in the news media anything that has caused you to form an opinion or feeling that would take evidence to overcome? A. No. Q. Have you read or heard anything about this case? A. I'm sure I read something. I vaguely remember hearing something. I was in the kitchen doing something else, but I remember something about arraignment. But I'm not sure. I was doing other things, so I was half-listening. Q. If we were proceeding through the evidence and there were something that would cause you to reflect back to something you read or heard, do you feel you could set that aside and base your decision completely on what you heard in this courtroom? A. Yes. Tr., Vol. 5, pp. 207-217 (emphasis added). A criticism which might be leveled at the Brooks assurance statement as utilized by the majority is that the free press in this case was merely reporting that which was being spoon-fed to it by the prosecutor, and by other law enforcement people who could have been tempered down had the prosecutor been of a mind to caution them. With that in mind, the stage is set to examine the articles which made for a well-informed people to sit as jurors  all of which are attachments to the motion seeking a venire of jurors from some county other than Canyon  and, also one would think, counties other than Canyon which had not been subjected to the same intensity of exposure to media reporting: