I spent yesterday in jury duty and was selected for the Anthony Maio Case. New Haven Police Officer Anthony Maio is accused of two counts of Fourth Degree Sexual Contact without Consent and two counts of Second Degree Unlawful Constraint in an incident where he allegedly groped two Yale Students in a private bathroom at the nightclub, BAR one evening.

During Voir Dire, I was questioned by the attorneys and Judge Blue about my knowledge of the case and my ability to deliver a fair and unbiased decision. It was a very interesting set of questions that I think are very illustrative of the considerations that should be made in selecting jurors and I hope to write a detailed account later.

I had a certain amount of knowledge about the case before being empanelled as well as a friendship with the Mayor and certain reporters that have covered the case. While I believe that I could most likely have separated in my mind what is presented as evidence and what I know beforehand, what the law says and what is right and any feelings I have about people involved in the process, including journalists and politicians, it would be reasonable for people to doubt if I could be fair and impartial and I believe that the judge did the correct thing in excusing me from serving on the jury, as much as I would have been interested in serving on that jury.

During my questioning, I mentioned my role in 2005 as BlogMaster for Mayor DeStefano’s Gubernatorial campaign, and last night people search on this and read my blog post from when I started in that role. I hope that people who read that will come back to read future posts about the case.

Besides writing about my experience in the jury selection process, I am considering attending parts of the trial and writing about it, if I can work it into my schedule. The trial raises many interesting questions that I believe would make good material for blog posts.

I will be off at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for the next several days. After I return, the trial is scheduled to start on August 3. However, there is a UNESCO conference at UConn the same week and I am sure I will have plenty of other things to work on, so I will have to carefully balance my schedule.