New rules slow trial of murder suspect

Llewelyn James' case seems to be cursed.

James was just 16 when he was accused of killing six people in 2002 - the worst shooting rampage in Camden County since Howard Unruh's 1949 slaughter of 13 people.

More than five years have passed since James' arrest, and he still awaits trial.

Court officials recently tried for the second time in a month to seat a jury, only to plow through 344 potential jurors without being able to get a panel of 12, plus alternates. The judge postponed the case on Wednesday until September.

The culprit, lawyers in the case said, was partly a new set of rules that the state Supreme Court approved for vetting jurors.

The new standards require jurors to be asked certain open-ended questions designed "to elicit narrative responses" about legal points and larger societal issues. Generally, the jurors then are asked, "What makes you feel that way?"

"We're getting a lot of blank stares when that question is asked," said acting Camden County Prosecutor Joshua Ottenberg. "It changes the way we do jury selection in New Jersey, and I don't think people have gotten their collective minds around it yet. Then, to throw in the element of a six-homicide case."

The new standards have been in effect since January, and the state Administrative Office of the Courts issued more directives in May.

Though others have grumbled that the new process makes jury selection longer for even average cases, James' case could be the most complicated to test the new procedures - a test they seem to have failed.

James' attorney, Jaime Kaigh, said a palpable frustration settled in among the potential jurors, who were told several times they would be needed for only one day, only to be asked to return the next.

During questioning, jurors eventually admitted to talking among themselves about how long the process was taking.

One juror, Kaigh said, told the judge, "We know this is the first time this procedure is being used and you're experimenting on us."

"I've never had jury selection, absent a capital case, take more than a day and a half," said Kaigh, a veteran of 200 trials. "Capital jurors are treated better than these people were treated."

All the blame can't be laid on the new standards, though. Kaigh and Ottenberg noted that many jurors had to be excused because of publicity surrounding the case and the fact that the shootings took place in two small Camden County communities, which meant many residents of those towns had connections to people involved.

The time of year didn't help, either. Some jurors were excused because of vacations and other summer commitments.

In any case, few people are eager to serve for a trial that is scheduled to last five weeks.

Ottenberg noted one of the open-ended questions asks, "Do you think you're going to be a good juror in this case?"

"How many people do you think will say, 'No?' " he asked.

This latest delay adds to the five-year saga of the case, which has had at least two prosecutors, three defense attorneys and three judges, who have come and gone through retirements, job changes and illnesses.

In early May, before the Administrative Office of the Courts put out a list of suggested open-ended questions, a jury was picked, easily. But, before the testimony could start, four jurors admitted reading a newspaper story about the case. That led to a mistrial.

James was accused of killing four people in a house in Winslow Township, including his aunt, Una Bethune, and her boyfriend, Absalom Giddings, as well as Donald Mays Jr. and Corlis Williams, two friends visiting the home.

The next day, prosecutors allege, James killed two people - Kasim Dale and Christopher Ferguson III - at an apartment complex in Lindenwold.

The new jury standards were developed after the Supreme Court put together a committee of judges, defense attorneys and prosecutors to study the jury selection process.

The committee sought to bring a uniform approach to jury vetting, known as voir dire, and possibly to reduce the number of "peremptory challenges," which allow attorneys to get rid of some potential jurors without giving a reason.

John Eastlack, a defense attorney on the committee, said judges used to take widely varying approaches to voir dire, and some gave the process "short shrift."

"Sometimes there would be questions that were never asked and they were very relevant," he said. "I had judges who had their standard 18 questions and they wouldn't deviate no matter how much I put on the record."

Eastlack said the committee thought open-ended questions were important because, under the old system, "lawyers had so little chance to interact with jurors, to even hear them speak."

The judge in the James trial followed the suggested open-ended questions closely, the lawyers said.

Some of those questions ask the jurors about their feelings on gun control and the "so-called war on drugs."

"That one I think is kind of pointed," Ottenberg said. "To call it the 'so-called war on drugs' is a bit much. They're stating an opinion there."

Ottenberg said that, with the extent of the open-ended questions, "you finally hit on something that causes one side or the other to raise an exemption."

The vast majority of the 344 jurors, questioned over the course of six days, were dismissed for cause - meaning the questioning revealed some issue that made them ineligible to sit on the jury.

"I think open-ended questions are still a good thing because you really get to know what people think," Eastlack said. "I don't think the system should say, 'We really don't want to know too much information.' "

He said the standards could be streamlined as judges and lawyers get more acclimated to them. But Kaigh said the situation last week became so dire that he considered requesting an emergency hearing with the state Appellate Division.

And the question remains whether a jury can be seated in September to finally hear the James case.

"The system needs to be tweaked," Kaigh said. "Questions about 'how do you feel' about a point of law is not a good question."