CHICAGO (AP) -- Jury selection is complete in the R. Kelly child pornography trial.
The last two alternates were chosen this afternoon, finishing the selection of all 12 jurors and four alternates.
One of the two women is a retired Cook County sheriff's deputy who worked in the same complex that the trial is taking place. She said she knew little about the Kelly case but could be fair to the R&B singer.
The final alternate chosen is a black woman in her 40s.
Kelly's accused of videotaping himself having sex with a girl as young as 13. He's pleaded not guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Eight of the selected jurors are white, four are black, with one Latino alternate and one white alternate.
Defense attorneys objected several times as prosecutors used challenges to have several blacks dismissed from the jury pool.
``I think they're using these (challenges) to get rid of African Americans,'' said Sam Adam Sr., one of Kelly's attorneys. A little later, he complained that ``they've used 50 percent of their challenges on African Americans.''
Prosecutor Shauna Boliker shot back, telling the judge that the defense had ``used all six of their preemptories (preemptory challenges) on whites.''
Among the six jurors chosen Thursday was a young woman who told Judge Vincent Gaughan that she had been raped, but could put the traumatic experience aside and hear the case fairly.
Defense attorneys later asked to have her dismissed based on the rape, but Gawn rejected the request. ``She looked at Mr. Kelly and said she could give him a fair trail,'' the judge said.
Kelly mostly kept his head down at one end of a conference table while potential jurors were questioned, scribbling notes on yellow index cards in his lap. Between the sessions with each juror, Kelly stretched his arms and yawned.
But when one young man, later named as an alternate, told the judge that pictures don't always reveal the whole truth of a situation, Kelly looked up and nodded his head in agreement.
Another of the people to sit on the jury was a 68-year-old man who immigrated from Communist Romania 38 years ago. He praised the U.S. justice system, saying he understood the accused are presumed innocent.
``The score sheet at the beginning of the trial - zero, zero,'' he said. |
