- The Trial - Page 157

Thirty-one

Do you read newspaper horoscopes? Hadley asked prospective jurors when voir dire began on Tuesday, June 6, in Jacksonville.  Can one voter make an impact on the system?  Do businessmen and scientists provide a greater service than artist, musicians, and professors?  Do you support the Equal Rights Amendment?

Voir dire was the defense's first chance to learn something about the jurors who would judge Tommy Zeigler.  Robertson would have liked to interview their neighbors, at least drive by their homes to see how they lived, but there was no time.  He was dismayed at the speed with which Zeigler was being brought to trial.  Bam, bam, he thought, suddenly they were in a court-room, about to decide a man's fate.  The atmosphere was almost chaos, he felt; the defense was not prepared, too many loose ends. It didn’t seem fair. Zeigler’s life was at stake—what was the hurry?

Robertson's questions were designed to identify independent, free-thinking personalities.  This was predictable: defense attorneys are always looking for the confident, self-possessed juror who may stubbornly hold out when the majority of the panel wants to convict.

But he and Hadley had also decided that they wanted the most intelligent, analytical minds they could find.  They wanted jurors who would not be overwhelmed by the imposing quantity of the state's physical evidence.  Voluminous as it was, the collection of clothing and photographs and fingerprints and blood samples contained nothing that positively identified anyone, including Zeigler, as the murderer.

A dozen scientists would be perfect, Robertson thought.  But there was no chance of that.  The kind of juror he wanted was the least likely to be available for a long trial, and the most likely to find a way of being rejected by one side or the other.1

Robertson thought that the state also knew what it wanted.  Eagan used one of his challenges to remove a man with a scientific background.  Another had served on military courts-martial.  Ordinarily this background would be anathema for the defense, but he fit Robertson's profile in this case.  Eagan rejected him, too.

By Wednesday afternoon, fourteen potential jurors remained unchallenged by either side.  Hadley still had challenges to use, but Robertson believed that the rest of the pool was no more promising.  A drawing of lots selected twelve jurors and

1  This is the opinion of Steve Robertson, as expressed in an interview in 1991. It should be noted that one of the jurors, a young black student named Leatrice Williams, later passed the bar and is now a practicing attorney in Jacksonville.