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it was the most complex criminal prosecution I've ever handled on top of which it had two juries it was a death
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penalty case which is complicated in and of itself uh one of the defendants had confessed and implicated the other
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defendant and so you had the problem that he could not be forced to testify so the other defendant could not
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cross-examine him on that so you had to pick two juries one who would hear the confession and one who wouldn't there
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were just a lot of legal issues you had to worry about on a case like this not to mention that just the length of it 4
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and a half months mon you're bound to lose some jurors along the way every day there were issues that would come up you
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know jurors had employers who were upset that they weren't showing up at work and
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were threatening to fire them and I had to deal with those issues so that you wouldn't lose a juror and then when you
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get to the end of the case and you've got two juries you've got two juries who have a right to look at the evidence and
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so where does the evidence go you had to come up with a system for jurors to look
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at all of the evidence and the other jury be able to see it as well when they weren't looking at it um keep the jurors
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separate because they couldn't communicate with each other that could result in a mistrial I think the
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greatest challenge was the jurors as a former cop as a a judge I've seen really difficult gruesome cases but we're
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asking 35 people who are moms and teachers and just individuals who don't normally get exposed to that kind of
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viciousness to come in here not only listen to it but look at some of the most graphic disturbing pictures that I
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can can say I've ever seen as a judge um so I think the biggest challenge was theirs and uh they did an amazing job
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the jurors in this trial were my heroes